(MONEY Magazine) – IRAS Q. My husband and I want to use our total IRA funds, $7,000, to make a down payment on a house. Is there a way to avoid a withdrawal penalty? LINDA NG Denver A. Not unless you are 59 1/2 or older. Otherwise, in addition to the 10% penalty on premature withdrawals from an Individual Retirement Account, you will have to pay ordinary income taxes on the amount you take out.

INVESTMENT EXPENSES Q. My wife and I have a bank account in Tijuana, Mexico, and we wish to go to Mexico to check out other investment opportunities. How much of the cost of our travel is tax deductible? DEAN RENNERTS Imperial Beach, Calif. % A. None. To deduct travel costs as investment expenses, you must be able to show that the trips were necessary either to manage an investment or to collect income from it.

COLLECTIBLES Q. I have a copy of the Nov. 3, 1948 Chicago Tribune with the banner headline wrongly announcing DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. How much is it worth and how do I sell it? MRS. RALPH B. MONIN Elizabethtown, Ky. A. Your copy of the famous edition of the Tribune would fetch $300 to $500 from a dealer in rare newspapers, depending on its condition, according to Steve Alsberg, owner of Historical Newspapers & Journals, a collector's shop in Skokie, Ill. But you might get more from a private collector by advertising in the Paper Collectors Marketplace, P.O. Box 127, Scandinavia, Wis. 54977, at 10 cents a word.

MUTUAL FUNDS Q. I recently closed out my $3,447 account in the Pennsylvania Mutual Fund, which I opened in March 1984. The fund took out a ''withholding redemption penalty'' of $689.52. What is this? How can I get my money back? BRUCE GEORGE Mesa, Ariz. A. The deduction was actually a 20% withholding tax required by the Internal Revenue Service because, according to Al Cinotti, operations director for Pennsylvania Mutual, you did not fill out a W-9 form declaring that you are not subject to what the IRS calls backup withholding. Such a statement is mandated for accounts opened after Dec. 31, 1983. You can apply the $689.52 toward your 1987 taxes, or you can fill out a W-9 (which you can get by phoning the fund) and ask the fund to retrieve the money from the IRS and pay it to you. Pennsylvania Mutual, like most funds, will do so.

MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE Q. We plan to move abroad and need to sell our house. But prices have fallen so much that the house is worth much less than our $82,000 mortgage balance. If we let the bank foreclose on the loan, can it also seize the assets we have saved up in IRAs and a pension plan as well as my son's zero-coupon bond? Would we be better off declaring bankruptcy? SUE LU Sugarland, Texas A. Your retirement accounts -- any IRA, Keogh or tax-deferred pension accounts -- are safe from seizure in a foreclosure or bankruptcy under the law of Texas and many other states. Your son's assets can be seized only if his name is also on the mortgage. In a foreclosure, you will lose your house and still be liable for the unpaid mortgage balance. The foreclosure will remain on your - credit record for seven years. If you declare personal bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, you can escape having to pay what's still due on the mortgage after selling the house, but the bankruptcy will stay on your credit record for 10 years. Terry Blaney, president of Houston & Gulf Coast Area Consumer Credit Counseling Service, suggests that you hold on to the property and rent it out until the housing market improves -- even if the rent does not cover expenses. If your income is less than $100,000 a year, you can deduct up to $25,000 a year in losses on your federal tax return.

STOCK WARRANTS Q. I have been advised to buy warrants for an over-the-counter stock. What are warrants, and what can they do for me? MICHAEL ANGELILLO New York City A. Warrants give the owner the right to buy a certain number of shares in a company at a specified price. They differ from options mainly in that they expire in three to five years, rather than six months or less. Like options, warrants let you benefit from a rise in a stock's price without buying the stock itself. For example, a $1.75 warrant on a $26 stock might allow the holder to buy the stock at $40 anytime during the next five years. Warrants trade on stock exchanges, their values rising and falling with the price of the underlying stock.