A roth IRA is after tax money. you initially invest less per dollar earned but.... it is not regulated how you take it out. look at tax brackets. if I take out 20 of an 401K im taxed 12% (?) if I take out 80k Im taxed 20% on everything above 20k. if I take out 100k from a roth its not taxed at all. but remember My roth dollars were less then my 401k because they were post earnings tax dollars vs pretax earnings dollars
The IRA Roth Is the way to go. But the Feds limited how much you could put aside when I was working.