Great article Adam. I think one additional area where à Roth conversion can be beneficial is if you are already in a high bracket in retirement (such as many folks here with significant retirement income), and you expect at least you or your spouse to have a long life well past 73. While the Roth conversion just moves the taxation forward from when you die, and it isn’t a great return based on that alone, doing a complete conversion will avoid needing to make highly taxed RMD’s when you get to that point. in our case, my wife being Asian and very healthy, it’s likely the entire amount of our traditional IRA’s would get fully RMD’d, which would mean seven figures in extra taxes on income we don’t really “need” between the ages of 73 and 90. We, of course, had a financial advisor confirm this in advance. In our case it also helps that our state of residence has no state income tax to impact the conversion.
How naive of you to think that the govt shouldn’t reneg on the contract outlined by its financial regulations that created SS and IRAs. Haven’t you been reading this comment thread? We have a govt program here that is going to be underfunded soon. Gotta make someone lose (the consensus seems to be us).
IRA’s are à qualified retirement account, and do not affect a FAFSA application. Not sure if à Trump account is considered a qualified retirement account or not?
As long as you also increase the SS payments to those that pay those taxes, then sure. But, if the whole point is to get more revenue with no benefit for it paid, then it’s wrong.
Why cap it at $100k? Why not $80k? Surely, a retired household can live on that. Half of America already does. Or, better yet, just make the benefit a flat number, regardless of how much you contribute?
The tax rate you, and the rest of us, have been paying is 12.4%, no 6.2%. Whether that has been too low is highly debatable. That said, while increasing the tax to 16.2% would be unpalatable, it is the most honest solution. All others involve picking more winners and losers and increasing the unfairness of our tax code.
The entire premise that there has been an increase in layoffs is just incorrect. There has been exactly zero increase over the last 25+ years, and the last 5 have been below historical levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL
Comments
Great article Adam. I think one additional area where à Roth conversion can be beneficial is if you are already in a high bracket in retirement (such as many folks here with significant retirement income), and you expect at least you or your spouse to have a long life well past 73. While the Roth conversion just moves the taxation forward from when you die, and it isn’t a great return based on that alone, doing a complete conversion will avoid needing to make highly taxed RMD’s when you get to that point. in our case, my wife being Asian and very healthy, it’s likely the entire amount of our traditional IRA’s would get fully RMD’d, which would mean seven figures in extra taxes on income we don’t really “need” between the ages of 73 and 90. We, of course, had a financial advisor confirm this in advance. In our case it also helps that our state of residence has no state income tax to impact the conversion.
Post: Financial Choices
Link to comment from September 20, 2026
How naive of you to think that the govt shouldn’t reneg on the contract outlined by its financial regulations that created SS and IRAs. Haven’t you been reading this comment thread? We have a govt program here that is going to be underfunded soon. Gotta make someone lose (the consensus seems to be us).
Post: Income taxes on retirees with Social Security
Link to comment from August 21, 2026
IRA’s are à qualified retirement account, and do not affect a FAFSA application. Not sure if à Trump account is considered a qualified retirement account or not?
Post: Trump Accounts
Link to comment from July 12, 2026
As long as you also increase the SS payments to those that pay those taxes, then sure. But, if the whole point is to get more revenue with no benefit for it paid, then it’s wrong.
Post: Just the facts about Social Security
Link to comment from June 14, 2026
So, the only people that will pay are folks that saved for retirement?
Post: Just the facts about Social Security
Link to comment from June 14, 2026
Why cap it at $100k? Why not $80k? Surely, a retired household can live on that. Half of America already does. Or, better yet, just make the benefit a flat number, regardless of how much you contribute?
Post: Fixing Social Security once and for all
Link to comment from April 22, 2026
The tax rate you, and the rest of us, have been paying is 12.4%, no 6.2%. Whether that has been too low is highly debatable. That said, while increasing the tax to 16.2% would be unpalatable, it is the most honest solution. All others involve picking more winners and losers and increasing the unfairness of our tax code.
Post: Fixing Social Security once and for all
Link to comment from April 18, 2026
The entire premise that there has been an increase in layoffs is just incorrect. There has been exactly zero increase over the last 25+ years, and the last 5 have been below historical levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL
Post: America Doesn’t Just Do Layoffs. It’s Fallen in Love With Them
Link to comment from March 18, 2026