What are some good tax free/deferred investments?

I need ideas on some (possibly long term) investments to use in order to receive interest and also tax free or tex deferred. Please give links to sites. Any info is helpful, thanks.

Best options for tax deferral are your company 401k or an IRA. There are many many investment options if you are interested in an IRA - both through mutual fund companies and by investing directly in stock market. If you are not an experienced investor, then go the mutual fund route. Here are links to my 2 favorite fund companies:
http://www.vanguard.com
http://www.troweprice.com

However, if you go this route, it can't be 'possibly long term' - IRAs and 401ks are for saving for retirement, and if you want to withdraw some or all of your funds prior to that, you will be penalized.

(FYI, you receive interest from savings accounts, CDs, or bonds - profits from investing in stocks or stock mutual funds would come in the form of capital gains and/or dividends.)

If you're not sure you can leave the money sit until retirement, then you could try municipal bonds. But you should understand their features and in which jurisdiction(s) they're tax free.

Long-term you have to go with a Roth IRA.

All gains made in a Roth IRA are tax free, but you have to pay taxes on your inital contribution.

Short-term I would say look into local bonds, which should be tax free federal, but taxed at the state level.

Regards,

Nicholas
http://www.currency-profits.com

While the answers in which people referred to IRAs or 401ks are correct, these are merely investment vehicles. Let's say for example, you invest the max contribution amount for 2006, of $4000 dollars, in an IRA. The IRA is simply an account that is not taxed until liquidated. You still have to invest that $4000 in something.

If you are asking about what type of investments can you invest in which have some sort of tax benefit while providing dividends or interest, then you should look at government, municipal bonds, and REITs. While no investments are w/o risk, government and municipal bonds are backed by either federal, state, or local governments. The interest you get from the coupon yield of these bonds also has some tax deferral benefits.

REITs are investment companies that invest in hard real estate assets. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), are obligated to distribute 90% of their operating income to investors. These dividends also have a tax deferred percentage that comes from depreciation of the real estate assets the REIT owns.

In both of these examples you have a tax deferred benefit regardless of whether you own the investments in an IRA or justa simple brokerage account.

However, you are looking to defer taxes on investments, you should open an IRA or 401k.....Because of the tax deferral benefit, there is a max contribution rate for each account type.

dependes on where you reside. In UK you have ISA, which allow you to put away upto 7K each year and whatever it grows to is tax free. In US you have 401K, IRA, Roth IRA and Roth 401K. Go with Roth if you can, it won't be available soon, since US govt realized that it's giving away a lot of potential earnings this way.

http://www.letsgobble.com/

buy stocks that do not pay dividends. You will not pay any tax unless you sell them.