IRAs

Q&A: Should I consider Roth conversions now or after I retire?

June 16, 2026 By Liz Weston 1 Comment

Dear Liz: My husband and I both waited until age 70 to start Social Security. I will be 72 in September and am considering retirement. My husband is retired, 74, and taking required minimum distributions (RMDs). We have always tried to maximize contributions to our pre-tax retirement accounts and are now realizing the downside as we pay taxes on those mandatory withdrawals. Should I consider Roth conversions now or after I retire? I realize I will need to pay taxes on those conversions, but would it be best to do that when my income is lower? I am thinking about my kids and their future.

Answer: Late-in-life Roth conversions can be tricky. The amount you convert is removed from RMD calculations, lowering future tax bills. But the conversion is added to your current taxable income, potentially making more of your Social Security taxable and temporarily raising your Medicare premiums (thanks to income-related monthly adjustment amounts or IRMAA) in addition to generating a big tax bill.

Theoretically, a conversion could still make sense if your current tax rate is lower than the one you’ll have once you start required minimum distributions at 73. The case for conversion is strengthened if you want to pass this money to your kids. They likely would have to empty any inherited retirement account within 10 years, and they could be in their peak earning (and tax-paying) years when they do so. By converting now, you would in effect be paying the tax bill for them, perhaps at a lower rate than they might face, and allowing them to inherit the money tax-free.

A tax pro can help you with the calculations so you’ll understand the financial impact of a conversion. Then you can make an informed decision about whether to proceed.

Q&A: Is it wise to have all your accounts under one roof?

June 3, 2024 By Liz Weston

Dear Liz: I’m setting up accounts post-divorce, while learning personal finance on the fly. Is it “safe” or advisable to have all of my larger accounts — IRAs, 401(k), cash management — with the same institution, or should I spread them around? I have smaller checking and savings accounts with a good credit union.

Answer: Using a single investment firm is certainly convenient, and most people will be just fine having all their accounts in one place.

The Securities Investor Protection Corp. covers accounts up to $500,000, including up to $250,000 in cash. This insurance protects you if the brokerage fails and your cash or securities go missing.

Customers with multiple accounts often get more coverage. For example, IRAs and Roth IRAs would each get up to $500,000 in coverage, as do individual and joint brokerage accounts. A person with all four types of accounts would have $2 million in coverage. Accounts for corporations, trusts, estate executors and guardians of minors also get separate coverage. For more details, see SIPC’s brochure, “How SIPC Protects You.”

Your 401(k) has its own protections. Assets in 401(k)s are placed into trust accounts, separate from the investment firms that administer the plans and the employers that sponsor them. The money can’t be touched by creditors of either one.

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

September 4, 2014 By Liz Weston

Today’s top story: Be on the lookout for deceptive balance transfer options. Also in the news: How to retire without a large nest egg, how to work less as you approach retirement, and how to raise a financially savvy teenager.

Credit Card Companies Warned of Deceptive Balance Transfer Offers
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

3 Effective Ways to Retire Without a Large Nest Egg
Eliminating your debt is key.

How to Work Less as You Approach Retirement
Time to start using those sick days.

When Bad Things Happen To Good People With IRAs
Understanding beneficiary designations.

How Financially Savvy Is Your Teenager?
The earlier they learn, the better off they’ll be.

How to start investing

April 10, 2014 By Liz Weston

A reader recently posted this question on my Facebook page:

Liz, I’m 30 years old and looking into starting [to invest in] mutual funds and IRAs and have no idea where to start. I know I really need to invest for the future and am eager to do so, but again, have no knowledge on any of this nor know where to start. Any advice or pointers would be more than appreciated.

I suggested he start with reading two really good books for beginning investors, Kathy Kristof’s “Investing 101” and Eric Tyson’s “Personal Finance for Dummies.” But here’s a summary of what you’ll learn:

Get started investing as soon as possible, even if you don’t quite know what you’re doing. You’ll learn along the way, and you really can’t make up for lost time.

Invest mostly in stocks. Stocks over time offer the best return of any investment class, and provide you the inflation-beating gains you’ll need for a comfortable retirement.

Don’t try to beat the market. Few do consistently. Most people just waste a lot of money. Instead, opt for mutual funds or exchange traded funds that try to match the market, rather than beat it.

Keep fees low, low, low. Wall Street loves to slather them on, but fees kill returns. Here’s an example: An annual IRA contribution of $5,000 can grow to about $1 million over 40 years if you net a 7 percent average annual return. If you net 6 percent, that lowers your total by a $224,000. That’s a heck of a lot to pay for a 1 percentage point difference in fees.

If you have a workplace retirement plan such as a 401(k), that’s where you should start investing. If you don’t, then an IRA you open yourself is the next best thing.

So here’s a prescription for getting started: Open an IRA at Vanguard, which prides itself on its low expenses. Send them a check for $1,000 (the minimum to get started with an IRA). Choose a target date retirement fund that’s close to the year when you expect to retire (in this reader’s case, that would be the Vanguard Target Retirement 2050). Target date funds take care of everything: asset allocation, investment choices, rebalancing over time for a more conservative mix as you approach retirement age. You can get the $20 annual account fee waived if you sign up for online access and opt for electronic delivery of account documents.

There you go–you’re on your way.

How long will “back door” Roth conversions be allowed?

January 9, 2014 By Liz Weston

Wealthier taxpayers are doing a two-step around Roth income limits by putting money into regular IRAs and then promptly converting the accounts to Roths.

They’re taking advantage of Congress’ decision to remove the previous $100,000 income limit for conversions. That decision, which took effect in 2010, led to a conversion boom: $64.8 billion transferred from regular IRAs to Roths that year, compared to $6.8 billion the year before.

The rich know a good deal when they see one: more than 10% of those earning $1 million or more converted to a Roth in 2010, Bloomberg reported.

Moving money from a regular IRA to a Roth usually requires paying income taxes, but the converted money gets to grow tax-free from then on. Roths also don’t have minimum distribution requirements, so the money can be passed free of income taxes to heirs.

Removing the $100,000 income limit for conversions also opened the door for what’s known as a “back door” Roth contribution.

Your ability to contribute directly to a Roth phrases out with if you’re single and your modified adjusted gross income is between $114,000 and $129,000 in 2014. For married couples filing jointly, the phase out range is $181,000 to $191,000.

People whose incomes are too high to contribute directly to a Roth can get around those limits, however, by contributing to a regular IRA and then converting that money to a Roth. The conversion can happen essentially tax-free if you don’t already have money in an IRA and you convert the money soon after contributing it.

If you already have a fat IRA account, such a conversion can trigger a tax bill, since you have to include all of your IRA assets when figuring the taxes on a conversion. The “pro rata” rule requires you to pay a proportional amount of taxes on the original account’s pretax contributions and earnings. If 90% of your IRA accounts are pretax contributions and earnings, then 90% of your conversion amount would be subject to tax. (Ever-helpful Bankrate.com has a conversion calculator to figure out whether paying the tax might be worthwhile.)

But there’s even a way around the pro rata rule, apparently. If your 401(k) allows you to “roll in” an IRA account, which some do, you can essentially make your existing IRA disappear from the conversion tax calculation.

None of this is exactly secret. This Vanguard video discusses how to do backdoor Roth contributions, as does this Wall Street Journal post, this post from MarketWatch and these piece from Forbes, among many others. This article from the Journal of Accountancy, the “flagship publication” of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, discusses the roll-in strategy for avoid the pro rata rule.

But some smart people, like financial planner Michael Kitces, have argued that there’s a risk to backdoor Roth conversions that’s not as well publicized: that IRS could step in at any time and invalidate the conversions, perhaps even imposing a 6% “excess contribution” tax on the money. “The IRS can still call a spade a spade,” Kitces wrote on his blog Nerd’s Eye View, “and the rising abuse of this ‘loophole’ may bring about its permanent end.”

“In the end, the contribute-and-then-convert strategy is not expressly prohibited by the tax code, but the IRS does have the right to tax a transaction according to its true economic reality,” Kitces wrote. “And if the express goal and intent of the client is merely to circumvent the clear intent of the law, and is done in a manner that blatantly disregards it, beware.”

Other smart people, such as IRA expert Ed Slott, have argued that the “step transaction doctrine” that allows the IRS to unwind economically bogus transactions doesn’t apply in this case.

“My general advice to clients who cannot make contributions directly to a Roth IRA (due to high income) is to make the contribution to their IRA first, let it stay there for at least a day or two – so it shows up on at least one traditional IRA statement – and then convert it to a Roth IRA,” Slott wrote.

This is not a new discussion, by the way. You’ll note the blog posts above are a few years old. The IRS has yet to clear up the mystery.

My take: since the IRS hasn’t officially weighed in, there’s a risk involved in these transactions. High earners may feel the risk is well worth taking, given the huge benefits Roths offer.