Summary: Many people think mistakenly think that retirement accounts are just places for you to save money until you’re 65. Actually, they offer you humongous benefits if you agree to save for a long-term horizon. Let’s compare regular (taxable) investing accounts with retirement accounts.

Regular investing accounts. When you open up an account at ETrade or whatever, you’re generally opening up a regular investing account, which is also called a taxable account. This means that when you sell your stocks, you’ll pay taxes on your gains–and if you sell your stocks in less than a year, you’ll pay a huge amount (regular income-tax rates, like 15% or 30%).

Let’s not get bogged down in the details, okay. As I’ve written on this site, buy-and-hold investing wins over the long term. And because of the way taxes are structured, you pay a penalty for trading too frequently. See how the pieces fit together? It’s paternalism at its best. But there’s an even stronger advantage to holding your money for longer–say, until retirement.

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