If you have a USA IRA account you can roll over it into a new IRA Roth account. You must pay taxes on the value of the securities that you are placing into the new Roth. For example, if you have $40,000 value that you transferred, this is added as income in this years' tax bill. If this is mostly SLI shares, then whenever you want you can take out the initial, (example), $40,000 tax free, because you've already paid taxes on it; the rest you have to wait five years and then it is tax free. If you take out any before then, (i.e. other than your initial contribution to the Roth) there is a penalty. The advantage in this situation is that you are putting in low value shares and when the SLI shares are very valuable you only have to sell a few to get your initial $40,000 shares back, and secondly you are advised to live at least five more years.

This is a good deal since the shares are depressed right now, and if you study the library you know you will be whistling later this year!