It's true that you save your tax free money in an IRA account hoping to use it when you retire.
Things however don't always happen the way we want them to and a time may come when you find yourself desperately in need of money and your only option is your IRA fund.
You also know that there is an IRA Withdrawal Penalty which will be slammed on you, if you try to withdraw your money before you reach the age of 59.
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A penalty of 10 percent is quite heavy and you would wish to avoid it.
The question is what do you do if you are faced with such a situation? Things however are not all that bad and the government does understand that emergencies do occur when people need money in a hurry.
This is one of the reasons why they have added some clauses to their IRA withdrawal penalty rules in order to show a way out for those who are genuinely in need of funds for specific reasons.
Of course you will have to substantiate your claims with authenticated documents to prove your needs.
Here we will see the type of situations that will waive off an IRA withdrawal penalty:

• Death - The withdrawal penalty will not be applied if the IRA account holder dies.
  
• Permanent Disability - No penalty will be applied if the account holder is permanently disabled.
  
• Serious Illness - Penalty is waived if the account holder's illness requires lengthy treatment and expensive medicines.
  
• Medical Insurance Premium - If you are jobless for more than 12 weeks and have to pay your medical insurance premium no penalty will be applied.
  
• Higher Education - If College fees for you or your family members have to be paid, you will not have to pay the penalty.
  You can use the money for books and other equipment as well.
  
• Buying your First Home - $10,000 is allowed to be withdrawn for this purpose and that is the limit for the whole period of the IRA account.
  

As you can see from the above, it is a very fair assessment and one that can put anyone's mind at rest.
Try however not to withdraw from your IRA fund as much as possible, not only because of the IRA withdrawal penalty but simply because withdrawing means you will not have as much to use in your retirement.
Instead of having a nice little nest egg to enjoy life, you will have a much less depleted fund that you will regret when the time comes.
One more factor you must keep in mind is, apart from the 10% penalty you will have to pay on the total amount you withdraw early, you will also have to pay a penalty on the taxes due on the amount of savings you withdrew.
Harsh, you might say, but that's how it is and I guess it is made that way to stop people from withdrawing their savings for not so urgent projects.
So, be careful and don't withdraw from your IRA fund unless you really, really need it desperately.