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The One High-Yield Asset You Should Never Put in a Roth (and 3 You Should)

Joel South

Sat, August 29, 2026 at 2:01 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

MLPs like EPD carry UBTI risk inside an IRA, and their natural return-of-capital tax shelter already makes taxable accounts the better fit.
An 8% high-yield portfolio costs a 24% bracket investor $9,600 annually in taxes that a Roth eliminates entirely.
REITs and BDCs pay ordinary income taxed at your marginal rate. Roth placement converts that liability into permanent tax-free compounding.
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Every April, high-yield investors in the 24% federal bracket quietly write a check to the IRS that they never had to send. A $500,000 portfolio spinning off roughly 8% in blended yield hands the government $9,600 per year in ordinary income tax when it sits in a taxable brokerage account. Inside a Roth, that same portfolio hands over zero. The stock selection determines whether that gap actually shows up, and one popular high-yield asset can turn the Roth advantage into a headache.

Vitalii Vodolazskyi / Shutterstock.com

One High-Yield Asset to Keep Out of Your Roth

Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD) is the classic example. The midstream giant carries a market cap of roughly $84.5 billion, a current yield of 5.76%, and a $0.56 quarterly distribution that has climbed steadily from $0.515 in early 2024. The catch: EPD is structured as a master limited partnership. It issues a K-1 rather than a 1099, and MLP income held inside an IRA can generate Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI). Above a modest annual UBTI threshold, the IRA itself, not the account holder, can owe tax and have to file Form 990-T.

MLP distributions already receive favorable tax treatment in a taxable account because much of the payout is treated as return of capital. Putting EPD in a Roth trades away that natural tax shelter and adds paperwork risk. This is not tax advice, and readers with existing MLP positions should confirm the specifics with a tax professional.

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Three Names That Belong in the Roth

The stocks that gain the most from Roth placement are the ones paying ordinary, non-qualified income: REITs and BDCs.

Realty Income (NYSE:O) yields 5.15%, pays monthly, and just declared its 674th consecutive common stock monthly dividend. REIT dividends are ordinary income in a taxable account. In a Roth, they compound tax-free.
Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) yields 9.63% at a $0.48 quarterly regular dividend, backed by a $29.3 billion portfolio and 68 consecutive quarters of stable-to-rising payouts. BDC distributions are taxed as ordinary income at your marginal rate outside a Roth.
Main Street Capital (NYSE:MAIN) pays a $0.265 monthly regular dividend raised 3.9% from the fourth quarter of 2025 plus a $0.30 supplemental, its 20th consecutive quarterly supplemental. Yield sits at 5.29%.

Tax Delta at the 24% Bracket

Anchor the math to a $500,000 position blended to an 8% yield across those three names. Gross annual income: $40,000. Held in a taxable account at the 24% bracket, the after-tax figure drops to roughly $30,400. Held in a Roth, you keep the full $40,000. That is a $9,600 annual Roth advantage, or close to $96,000 over ten years before any reinvestment.

Bracket Multiplier by Income Level

The same $40,000 dividend stream produces very different net figures depending on where you sit in the federal ordinary-income brackets:

A 37% bracket investor loses nearly $15,000 a year on the same portfolio a 22% bracket investor loses under $9,000 on. The higher the bracket, the more urgent the placement decision.

Compounding Cost Most Readers Miss

The $9,600 annual delta at 24% compounds year after year. Reinvested tax-free at the same yield inside the Roth, that delta becomes a permanent second income stream feeding on itself. Even ignoring any price appreciation, that is roughly $96,000 over ten years and materially more over twenty. Held outside a Roth, that money never existed for you. It was always the IRS's.

What to Do Next

If you own any BDC or net-lease REIT in a taxable account, calculate the annual tax cost at your bracket before your next tax filing.
Before ruling out a Roth conversion on cost grounds, run the numbers on the specific ordinary-income payers you already hold. The quiet years between your last paycheck and your first RMD are often when conversions are cheapest, a window we sized up in a free guide here: The Roth Window. The long-run delta often dwarfs the conversion bill.
If you own EPD or another MLP inside an IRA today, review your K-1s and confirm UBTI exposure with a tax professional before adding to the position.