I had a friend who worked for the county that did just that, you do have to hang up and call again to find the correct person. You can only make two in service distributions in a year. They will send a paper check and it took my friend about two weeks to receive it, they were out of the market in the interim. Their thought was to do a small amount for the first in service distribution to confirm it works, and then max it out and move the rest toward the end of the year. For those who had decades of only the pre-tax 457, having access to an after-tax 401(k) is powerful and can balance out the large amount of funds in their 457.My employer (Los Angeles county) recently gave us access to the Empower 401k including the option for after-tax contributions, so I am hoping to start engaging the "Megabackdoor Roth" maneuver, preferably through Vanguard where I have already been doing regular Backdoor Roths for years. I called Empower - after being on hold for 45 min, the person didn't seem too knowledgeable about this, but after I pushed and they talked to (I presume) their supervisor, they said I can take in-service withdrawals at any time from my after-tax contributions. As I understand it from reading through this thread and some others, as well as some AI sleuthing, is this the process?
1) Open an IRA or Roth IRA account at desired institution (in my case, I already have a Roth IRA account at Vanguard, and a traditional IRA account with $0 solely for the purpose of Backdooring yearly).
2) Request a withdrawal from Empower from the after-tax part of the 401k, and include my Vanguard account number (why did you put traditional? Why not put Roth directly?).
3) Empower will send me a check including both the basis and gains.
4) On the Vanguard app on my phone, "deposit" the check into my IRA (again, put in the traditional IRA or Roth IRA?).
5) Await letter from Empower noting the tax amount, cost basis etc.
6) Await tax forms the following year
Does that sound about right? I haven't made any after-tax contributions yet, but if it sounds like the above, I am hoping to start soon.
Thank you.
Statistics: Posted by calwatch — Tue May 05, 2026 11:09 am — Replies 46 — Views 11617
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