Posted: 11/17/2025 3:18:55 PM EDT
[Last Edit: SkiandShoot][Edited]
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Inspired by this thread: 401k in 2026 is-a changin, maybe. Well this thread and various posts got me thinking and actually we’re changing our plan. For 2026, we are actually NOT going to max on the traditional 401k but pivoting over to a ROTH-401k with maxing myself and my wife. This is the first year I’ve got a catchup ability with a high likelihood of it being Roth catchup. We’re also going to itemize our deductions by exceeding the charity contributions minimum to get us over the threshold + mortgage interest + property tax. For anyone looking into their decision process, setting up the future, a few details. The thing that pushed us over the edge was the fact that I will be facing RMD’s in 26 years in the order of magnitude of $750k-$1.2m, per year. Simple math growth based on balance. So we’re sketching out conversions from 55 years old to 61 years old, or so. One of the focus is “the ratio” conversion dollars to out of pocket taxes money. (It’s very inefficient to convert the money AND pay the taxes from the conversion, unless you have another 5-7 years of time horizon growth.) Instead of keep building a tax-RMD bomb, why not “convert now”? So I modeled going max-ROTH401k now, 2026 only and it basically comes out to be a 12:1 ratio of paying $1 tax per $12 of Roth contribution. In the future, it’s going to be a battle getting the ratio to the 6:1 or even down to 5:1 ratio, which becomes inefficient and starts to rely press on the future gains to deliver. Remember, taking money from your traditional IRA is taxed at ORDINARY INCOME, pushing your brackets up and at that point in time you are probably taking social security so paying income tax on it. While taking money from a ROTH ira is tax free completely. Big difference. Bridge accounts, selling mutual funds or stocks, remember, Long Term Capital Gains Bins/brackets, for now; typically 0%-10%, 15%, 20% etc. Which is a decent deal. It’s almost to the point that I am looking at 2027 with trad-401k max and considering switching it over to be ROTH401k as well. Not sure yet as we’ve got time to model that one. So hopefully some folks have learned something for their scenarios or got their wheels turning OR ask questions! If you want/need your situation modeled or other, I am using ChatGPT as it's pretty easy but you have to pay attention as it will fudge. You can post in here or IM me scenarios. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: ..... I will be facing RMD’s in 26 years in the order of magnitude of $750k-$1.2m, per year. Simple math growth based on balance. Instead of keep building a tax-RMD bomb, why not “convert now”? $1m in RMD your first year implies you'll have more than $25m in pretax savings. Congratulations, you've just discovered that the only difference between roth and pretax is the ability to choose to pay taxes now or later. ie. you opt to pay the taxes when you (think) you will be paying the lowest marginal rate. If you really will have over $25m pretax in 26 years that implies around $3m now - roth is probably a good choice if you think you'll live to see RMDs. Roth is also the most tax efficient way to leave your money to heirs. I would be retiring early so that you have a period of low/no income and can do significant roth conversions at a very low tax rate. You might find that the tax savings in the long run outweigh your salary, ie. the case could be that continuing to work will leave you with less money after taxes. |
| The other thing to do is check to see if your 401k plan allows additional after tax donations to be converted to Roth. Our fidelity plan allows it and essentially allows for in plan mega backdoor Roth conversions, which bumps up Roth max to 70 to 80k minus employer matching |
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A pertinent detail is that we know what the tax rates are today. We can only guess what they will be when you are doing RMDs. If we follow the Trump plan, they'll be low. What if we follow the Obama plan and they skyrocket? I'd rather pay known lower taxes today. |
It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child.
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Originally Posted By Justa_TXguy: I'd rather pay known lower taxes today. But you don’t know, that’s the problem. If anybody tells you one is always better than the other they are either lying or stupid because nobody knows if taxes will be higher or lower 20 years from now. The point I make is that OP says he has enough pretax savings, therefore more roth savings is a good choice for him if he lives to see $1mil RMDs like he says he will. |
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I was able to do Roth 401k at about the same age. Did so for a few years and REALLY wish I would have sucked it up and did it even longer. Meeting with the Financial Planner Thursday to see if it make sense to make some additional Roth contributions while in retirement. I believe the answer is yes in our situation. |
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I have a Roth 401K with work. Currently maxing my contribution from work and subsidizing my regular income needs from a inheritance. I then am contemplating converting a low 6 figure IRA from another employer into either my perosnal ROTH or the employer one. Not sure how I can get it into my employers fund. All funds are with Fidelity. I am most concerned with making it easy for inheritance purposes. I also have a BDA Roth that I may pull 8k out a year and put in personal ROTH. I believe I can convert my 6 figure IRA to Roth any time but need to read more. I understand I don't want to go up into another tax bracket. What else to watch for? |
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Originally Posted By @networkguru: I have a Roth IRA with work. I believe I can convert my 6 figure IRA to Roth any time but need to read more. I understand I don't want to go up into another tax bracket. What else to watch for? 1) TAXES. Doing a conversion while still having an income is ill-advised for 90% of the cases. Your income will automatically fill up tax brackets/buckets. OR if you did a $100,000 conversion, it's taxed at ordinary income and will wipe out a tax bucket pushing your income into the next level. 2) CASH FOR THE CONVERSION. This is a key depending on your situation, time horizon, you will need cash to out of pocket to pay the taxes. A rule of thumb is a minimium of $10,000 per $100,000 conversion. And that is on the low end. Check out these charts as they show the buckets, brackets and just visualizing stacking another $100,000 to your income and what that does to your brackets then tax owed. Every scenario I have run results in optimally having very low/no salary (pulling cash flow from ROTH or 3 bucket method) so your "income" is near $0-$30,000, then doing a conversion. This appears to be beneficial ages, 55-60ish for growth time of the converted money. Attached File Attached File |
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Originally Posted By networkguru: I have a Roth IRA with work. I then am contemplating converting a low 6 figure IRA from another employer into either my perosnal ROTH or the employer one. Not sure how I can get it into my employers fund. I am most concerned with making it easy for inheritance purposes. I also have a BDA Roth that I may pull 8k out a year and put in personal ROTH. I believe I can convert my 6 figure IRA to Roth any time but need to read more. I understand I don't want to go up into another tax bracket. What else to watch for? You (might) have a roth 401k at work. Anybody can open a roth IRA on their own, it has nothing to do with your employment. They are equivalent from a tax perspective, but have different rules regarding contributions, withdrawals, etc. You're mixing up a lot of terms - all that matters is if the retirement account is pretax (traditional IRA, pretax 401k) or post tax (roth IRA or roth 401k). Anytime you withdraw pretax funds for any reason (except rolling over into a different pretax account) you have to pay taxes on the converted amount and there are rules that depend on your specific situation. Taxes are the only issue. You need to make a plan that minimizes the taxes that you pay. The dollar amount in taxes gets huge very quickly with very small changes around retirement time. |
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Sorry my terminology was muddled. Yes I have a 401K Roth at work. It is POST tax. I also have a personal ROTH. And a personal IRA that was a rollover from another job. I dont need to convert my current IRA all at once and thought I would only convert the amount that would keep me within the SAME tax bracket I am in currently per year till compete. I realize I will need to pay taxes. I dealt with that converting my Father's IRA to a ROTH before he passed. Thanks for the input. |
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Originally Posted By @VegasEggus: I was able to do Roth 401k at about the same age. Did so for a few years and REALLY wish I would have sucked it up and did it even longer. Meeting with the Financial Planner Thursday to see if it make sense to make some additional Roth contributions while in retirement. I believe the answer is yes in our situation. For educational purposes: How old are you now and how old were you then? Were you working when you did the conversions? Did you pay the tax out of the proceeds or personal pocket? Over what time horizon did you convert? |
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Originally Posted By @Morgan321: (great information snipped)  New Roth Conversion Rules Just Set A Trap for Retirees |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: For educational purposes: How old are you now and how old were you then? Were you working when you did the conversions? Did you pay the tax out of the proceeds or personal pocket? Over what time horizon did you convert? Sorry if I misunderstood your original post. I was about 50 when I switched from doing regular 401K contributions to Roth contributions. So, I was just sucking it up and paying the tax by making the after tax contributions. Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: Originally Posted By @VegasEggus: I was able to do Roth 401k at about the same age. Did so for a few years and REALLY wish I would have sucked it up and did it even longer. Meeting with the Financial Planner Thursday to see if it make sense to make some additional Roth contributions while in retirement. I believe the answer is yes in our situation. For educational purposes: How old are you now and how old were you then? Were you working when you did the conversions? Did you pay the tax out of the proceeds or personal pocket? Over what time horizon did you convert? Sorry if I misunderstood your original post. I was about 50 when I switched from doing regular 401K contributions to Roth contributions. So, I was just sucking it up and paying the tax by making the after tax contributions. |
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Originally Posted By VegasEggus: Got it. My mistake as I mis-read what you wrote. But as more information, calculations are easier then ever and YouTube videos. I'm pondering if there are basically "Balance Brackets" regardless of income that bracket Traditional 401k versus Roth 401k. The balance brackets govern the decision process NOT income tax versus salary. Yes the tax footprint and pushing taxes down now while in the 28%-32%+ brackets is great and all but that money is going to grow for 20+ years consistently. So dirty math: Traditional IRA + 401k balance Range: $300,000 - $500,000: Contribute moving forward to ROTH401k Balance under $300k, contribute to Traditional 401k Balance over $500k, regardless of income and age, ROTH 401k. Wild card is age but age and balance typically go hand in hand. I've got a few coworkers that are 25 years old and I'm pressing them to max ROTH401k and regular ROTH now. Granted their salaries are under $100k but they have 40 years of tax free growth. 2026 we are going all ROTH401k including catchup, allegedly. It's complicated. 2027 Traditional (it's complicated) 2028 Traditional 2029 TBD. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: Oh wow, nice calculations. Mine was a bit of back of the napkin. Seems you're pretty astute, have some tools and skills. Any chance you could take my existing setup and project it out to my RMD year, 2051 +25 years? Traditional IRA as it stands: ..........If so, you could use $1,000,000 then $1,5000,000 and $2,000,000 as balances? See what you think and what real world RMD's it calculates? Here is the extent of my math: you said $1m RMD in 25 years. Your first year of RMD is 1/27.4, or roughly 4% of your pretax total savings. So a first year RMD of $1m means your pretax savings is 27.4x that, or roughly $25m. The market doubles roughly every 8 years, so halve your $25m three times (25/8) = $25m/2/2/2 which is roughly $3m. So you need $3m today to have $1m RMD in 25 years. Working backwards, $1m now means $1m*2*2*2 in 25 years, or roughly $8m. $2m now means $16m in 25 years. The investments you list don't really matter. There is no way to predict what they might do in 25 years. The investments you list are all big-cap and will outgrow the broader market (but will also out-lose the broader market in a downturn) - they have more than doubled every 8 years for the last 1-2 decades but no way to know if that will be true for the next 2+ decades. Recall that 25 years ago Steve Jobs hadn't come back to Apple yet and they were teetering on bankruptcy. If you are 50 with 7 figures in pretax savings and planning to work for 20 more years....... I don't understand that! If you're a normal person (don't own a jet, buy a new ferrari every year, own a chalet in the alps, etc) you're set for retirement. Your savings plus two SS incomes is a lot of money. I would plan to retire at 55 (to leverage the rule of 55), do pretax withdrawals and roth conversions during your low income years, and enjoy retirement. Make a plan! Taxes in your situation can easily be multiple 6-figures higher or lower over just a few years depending on simple choices you make now. As an example, I'm around your age and am going to retire in my 50s. I have significant taxable savings and relatively little pretax savings so I am maximizing pretax now to reduce taxes and will withdraw/convert all that money at zero or 10% tax rate (instead of paying 22 or 24% now) after retirement but before starting SS. That 12-24 points lower tax rate adds up to a big number very quickly. |
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OP, how much do you have in traditional 401k/IRA accounts? How much do you have in Roth accounts? How old are you? What year do you plan to retire and start drawing on the accounts? How much in today's dollars do you expect to spend each year in retirement? That's the bare minimum needed to start estimating whether this is a reasonable plan or not. I'm inclined to think you've made a mistake in your current calculations. For most people RMD's aren't a huge problem and can be dealt with through annual post retirement conversions to Roth. I think it's also important to consider Shiller P/E when doing Roth conversions. They are an excellent tool for understanding if the market is over valued. Generally, when there is a high Shiller P/E, it's not the best time for conversions. If Shiller P/E is low, it's very likely to be beneficial for your overall tax burden to make conversions. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: I'm pondering if there are basically "Balance Brackets" regardless of income that bracket Traditional 401k versus Roth 401k. The balance brackets govern the decision process NOT income tax versus salary. Yes the tax footprint and pushing taxes down now while in the 28%-32%+ brackets is great and all but that money is going to grow for 20+ years consistently. So dirty math: Traditional IRA + 401k balance Range: $300,000 - $500,000: Contribute moving forward to ROTH401k Balance under $300k, contribute to Traditional 401k Balance over $500k, regardless of income and age, ROTH 401k. After loading in a few examples into ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity, I am going to reinforce my thesis: If you are 50 years old OR younger, with a combined balance of $300,000 to $500,000 in Traditional IRA and Traditional 401k, you need to be contributing to ROTH 401k, regardless of tax brackets. If RMD's were not a thing, it would be a different decision process. The issue is in the future you are paying tax on ~5x as much money at ordinary income versus the 1x money at ordinary income. Here is a 50 year old with a starter balance of $500,000. Then the next one is $300,000. The account balances and the RMD's would be taxed at ORDINARY INCOME! Granted the investments are important as you can't be all in low performers like bonds, gold or oil etc. Attached File Attached File |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: After loading in a few examples into ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity, I am going to reinforce my thesis: If you are 50 years old OR younger, with a combined balance of $300,000 to $500,000 in Traditional IRA and Traditional 401k, you need to be contributing to ROTH 401k, regardless of tax brackets. If RMD's were not a thing, it would be a different decision process. The issue is in the future you are paying tax on ~5x as much money at ordinary income versus the 1x money at ordinary income. Here is a 50 year old with a starter balance of $500,000. Then the next one is $300,000. The account balances and the RMD's would be taxed at ORDINARY INCOME! Granted the investments are important as you can't be all in low performers like bonds, gold or oil etc. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/32390/500k_JPG-3662091.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/32390/300k_JPG-3662092.JPG So most people will have significantly less than 5 million when RMD's start, even if they have $500k at 50. Some Roth is probably called for, but I wouldn't go 100% Roth. Remember that Roth conversions can be made after you retire. Also remember that Roth locks in your current highest tax bracket. If you make conversions the first ten years after you retire, you will probably never have RMD issues. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: The issue is in the future you are paying tax on ~5x as much money at ordinary income versus the 1x money at ordinary income. The account balances and the RMD's would be taxed at ORDINARY INCOME! Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: The issue is in the future you are paying tax on ~5x as much money at ordinary income versus the 1x money at ordinary income. The account balances and the RMD's would be taxed at ORDINARY INCOME! Most people have lower income during retirement because they don't save money, so pretax is best for them. Once you have significant savings it is common to have a larger income after retiring, in that cash roth is better. Based on the little info you've provided you're definitely in the latter group. But I'll say it again - you could retire early and do roth conversions in ideal amounts. The taxes you avoid doing that might add up to more than a few years of salary (ie. you could have more money by retiring earlier). Only a detailed plan can tell you this. Originally Posted By jaqufrost: 50 year olds don't get 25 years of pure growth. They generally get ten to fifteen, then they start drawing down and living with less income. Remember that Roth conversions can be made after you retire. Also remember that Roth locks in your current highest tax bracket. If you make conversions the first ten years after you retire, you will probably never have RMD issues. He could easily retire in his 50s but wants to work until 70 and is looking at how to minimize taxes. He presumably won't be making any retirement account withdrawals before 70 because he would get murdered on taxes. If he did roth conversions while working he would get equally murdered by taxes. OP needs a plan but over his history here he has avoided making a detailed plan for retirement. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: OP's issue is that he says he plans to work until about 70 and makes pretty good money. He could easily retire in his 50s but wants to work until 70 My intention is to learn, adjust and tweak my plan and more importantly, get readers thinking about their plan. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: Negative ghost rider. Reread all my posts as I never said I was working until 70. I’m actually out in 8.86 quarters. Have the date picked out already and a ChatGPT auto countdown clock built. My plan is wicked detailed and ever evolving. My intention is to learn, adjust and tweak my plan and more importantly, get readers thinking about their plan. Do all the pretax contributions you can for 8.86 quarters and then do roth conversions annually to fill up your desired tax brackets. Don't be afraid of taxable investing - 0/15% capital gains taxes are a useful tool. |
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Originally Posted By jaqufrost: 50 year olds don't get 25 years of pure growth. They generally get ten to fifteen, then they start drawing down and living with less income. So most people will have significantly less than 5 million when RMD's start, even if they have $500k at 50. Now we are having fun! PerplexityAI uses some nice fonts. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: So 13 years from now, taking $180k out of the portfolio and taking $25k in social, heck of a life (and living the 22% tax bracket, so be it)!!! You say A and B and C, then when somebody replies with a reasonable answer based on A/B/C you throw in the additional detail of D that you didn't previously share. This is the first time you've mentioned any withdrawals - that sort of changes everything. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: The problem with this thread is that you're only sharing snippets of your overall situation with us. You say A and B and C, then when somebody replies with a reasonable answer based on A/B/C you throw in the additional detail of D that you didn't previously share. This is the first time you've mentioned any withdrawals - that sort of changes everything. My apologies as I'm running various scenarios and then listening to counterpoints then providing perspectives. I am not planning on taking $180k withdrawals as that was a counter point from Jaqu so "let's model it" from a what does the math really show? perspective. (I am listening and tweaking my plan on the fly such as the converting 90%ish of my traditional as last week I was sketched in to do 100% but this new idea is better.) |
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Originally Posted By jaqufrost: I think it's also important to consider Shiller P/E when doing Roth conversions. They are an excellent tool for understanding if the market is over valued. Generally, when there is a high Shiller P/E, it's not the best time for conversions. If Shiller P/E is low, it's very likely to be beneficial for your overall tax burden to make conversions. I'm not debating your point. However, you might be waiting a LONG time and miss the boat. The only thing that gets in the way of a good plan, is waiting for a perfect one. The last time Schiller PE saw a reversion to the mean was during the great recession, 16 years ago. I know that my window for Roth conversions will be a relatively small one, basically in a 7 year window..... and there is no guarantee Schiller PE will cooperate with my timeline. |
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Purpose of my post is: Getting others thinking of their scenarios. Think bigger about where your sources of income will come from: Bridge accounts (Typically LTCG) Bonds deployed into buckets Tapping ROTH accounts (Tax Free) Tapping Traditional IRA/401k accounts (Ordinary income tax stacking, major issues with heirs) Pensions (more rare each year) Is my math busted. Get others to think bigger of what is possible. Own your situation as it's in your hands not others. Looking at the numbers, Traditional IRA or Traditional 401k, applies in very few of the cases for contributions. Go ROTH 80%-90% of the time. Basically even at the higher tax brackets, within reason, it's still cheaper to pay the taxes now, roth growth tax free. If we all didn't face RMD's it would be a different scenario. Paying ordinary income now is basically, even in higher tax brackets is almost like a "conversion" early. We don't plan on using our Traditional IRAs as our cash flow for retirement but our goal is to live in the <15% tax bracket through brokerage account sales via LTCG filling buckets along the way. I'm set for the first 3 years of expenses but now building the conversion model. Still stand on earlier post: If you are 50 years old OR younger, with a combined balance of $300,000 to $500,000 in Traditional IRA and Traditional 401k, you need to be contributing to ROTH 401k, regardless of tax brackets. If RMD's were not a thing, it would be a different decision process. The issue is in the future you are paying tax on ~5x as much money at ordinary income versus the 1x money at ordinary income. Example of a tax bomb we are facing. Attached File |
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One thing I wish I thought to do was to run a regular not a retirement plan brokerage account as well. I did not but still might. I am now drawing my pension and a small amount of from my retirement accounts. Thinking of building a little nest egg in a brokerage account. Why? It has a lot less limitations on what you can do with it because it’s not in a retirement account status. You will pay taxes on the interest for sure but it’s investment income not ordinary income. With the pension income filling me up and being a single tax filer my brackets and rates really suck for conversions of my 457B to Roth. When we had that huge dip this year I filled up the bracket with a conversion. Frankly I wish I went into the next bracket too as the dip was mostly paying for the conversion once the market rebounded. Between the conversion and the late offering of Roth in my plan for the last 2-3 years before I retired I am only about 10% Roth versus regular. I guess I could say I am hedging the difference, not really intentionally though. I play with financial modeling. In my situation I really don’t see much a difference. More a difference on what and when you want your money to do stuff. Pull hard younger and see and do while you can or stay conservative and have it really grow for when you’re too old to care for yourself. I really have no direct heirs to make plans for so that is one less reason to fret over Roth. If I was married then a conversion makes a lot more sense for when one of us died before the other. |
The only hyphenated names I like are cartridge names......30-06, 30-40, 38-55 etc.
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Originally Posted By SteelonSteel: One thing I wish I thought to do was to run a regular not a retirement plan brokerage account as well. I did not but still might. I am now drawing my pension and a small amount of from my retirement accounts. Thinking of building a little nest egg in a brokerage account. Why? It has a lot less limitations on what you can do with it because it’s not in a retirement account status. You will pay taxes on the interest for sure but it’s investment income not ordinary income. This is a point worth repeating and can become an even bigger factor for those that retire early. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: Wouldn’t everybody prefer to know the future? But you don’t know, that’s the problem. If anybody tells you one is always better than the other they are either lying or stupid because nobody knows if taxes will be higher or lower 20 years from now. The point I make is that OP says he has enough pretax savings, therefore more roth savings is a good choice for him if he lives to see $1mil RMDs like he says he will. Im no genius, but do you see deflation (significant) happening? cuz i don't. I don't anticipate somehow a silver backed dollar reappearing and 3000 dollar mustangs being "normal" (ball park what a 1966 mustang cost in silver dollars). The national debt isnt going away(ever) so the government lowering taxes doesnt seem logical to me. Raising them, that DOES seem reasonable. or "not raising taxes" by simply inflating dollar supply(say 3.5%) while raising tax brackets at a much lower rate. in 5 years tax brackets are MUCH more punative to middle class, /upper poor class, while income has gone up actual standard of living has been stationary. . |
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Originally Posted By @rc2: I am a Roth fan and have had a Roth IRA since the year they were created but I would be hard pressed to contribute to a Roth in the 35% bracket.  Should You Perform Roth Conversions While Working? | Roth Conversion 2022 My intention is to always get folks thinking about their situation as the tools are at our fingertips more than ever. |
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Originally Posted By SkiandShoot: Would you rather pay $11,280 over 26 pay periods in tax withholdings in 2026 and have $297,980 tax free to do as you please? OR Pay $0 additional tax with holdings and have $232,424 post tax after paying $65,556 in ordinary income stacked with any other incomes AND facing RMD's on that money too? $11k tax on $65k is 17% but $300k income puts you in the 24% marginal bracket so that doesn't add up. So far out of this entire thread we know that you're about 50 years old, married, retiring soon, and have better than average savings. You're the king of providing random snippets of info without the details or context needed to understand your situation. We can't help with any plan because you cherry pick data while leaving out other info that makes an enormous difference. The pretax/roth decision relies only on a single variable: your tax rate now vs when you make withdrawals. You've danced around the issue of roth conversions after you quit working - with no significant income you can convert $130k/year ($100k 12% bracket plus $30k standard deduction) to max out the 12% bracket. That's $1.3million converted at/below the 12% bracket over 10 years (from 53-62). |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: The pretax/roth decision relies only on a single variable: your tax rate now vs when you make withdrawals. You've danced around the issue of roth conversions after you quit working - with no significant income you can convert $130k/year ($100k 12% bracket plus $30k standard deduction) to max out the 12% bracket. That's $1.3million converted at/below the 12% bracket over 10 years (from 53-62). Bingo. |
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Per Post #29, did a next step in the plan. 1. Stop building the RMD tax bomb. See post #29 2. Start defusing the RMD tax bomb. My wife is 5 years younger and will live a long times (she's not tall). 3. Contribute to ROTH401k for my account for the next 8.51 quarters. Hers will still be traditional as she has a low overall traditional balance. This is my sketched plan for conversions but I'll have to navigate various LTCG events I've got on the horizon, inheriting any RMD accounts from relatives in the future. The goal will typically be living in the 10%-15% via LTCG events, bridge accounts, Roth accounts and relatively never tapping Traditional account until 2051. Then we could QCD it or leave ALL the remainder to various charities and they won't have RMD's. Fortunately I've been building my cash buckets for 2028 Q2-Q4, 2029 and 2030 now. Questions welcome. Or I can test various scenarios. Attached File |