The Fidelity Retirement reward credit card boasts 2% cash back contributions to your IRA account. The generous 2% cash is higher than the more standard 1% cash back reward offered by most credit cards and serves to make this offer one of the sweetest deals around.
However, keep in mind that even though the IRA contributions would be cash back from Fidelity, for tax purposes, they still count as contributions made by the taxpayer. In other words, if you earn $4,000 cash back from your Fidelity card, you can only contribute another $1,000 to any IRA for 2009, unless you qualify for the IRA catch-up contribution. A person cannot contribute the full $5,000 to an IRA from their pocket PLUS the cash back. They are part of the same pool of money.
If you are looking to make your full IRA contribution for the year via Fidelity’s cash back program, you will have to charge a lot! At a 2% rebate rate, one would have to charge $250,000 in order to get a full $5,000 credited to your IRA account.
