Deciding Between A Traditional And Roth IRA

This article discusses some of the situations where a person might want to consider converting a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. It is important to carefully plan ahead when thinking of doing a conversion to gain the tax benefits. There are two scenarios when a person might want to convert a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. Sometimes a person’s modified gross income might be too high to contribute directly to a Roth so they might put the funds into a traditional IRA and do a “back-door” conversion to a Roth IRA. The other scenario is when a person already has a traditional IRA and is thinking of converting it into a Roth. This article provides a list of conditions when converting makes sense. Making this decision should not be a do-it-yourself call and it is important to have assistance from a competent estate planner.

See Mark Eghrari, Should You Contribute to A Traditional Or A Roth IRA? (Or Should You Convert?), Forbes, February 12, 2016.