These pages are part of our free online Guide to Roth Retirement Accounts. This section deals with converting a traditional retirement account to a Roth account.
Our book: Go Roth! provides a complete, authoritative, plain language explanation of rules and strategies for all types of Roth accounts.
Special report
Isolating Basis for a Roth Conversion
If you have after-tax dollars in your IRA or 401k account, you might wonder if there’s a way to isolate those dollars so they can be converted to a Roth IRA, tax-free. Simply moving the after-tax dollars to a Roth won’t work, but there are strategies that may do the trick.
Guidance on Roth conversions
Conversion Preliminaries
Initial thoughts on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
Conversion Eligibility
Details on eligibility to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
Partial Conversion
Why you might want to consider a partial conversion of your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
Conversion Consequences
Answers to questions about the consequences of converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
How Much Conversion Tax?
Determining how much tax you’ll pay if you convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
Roth Conversion Early in the Year
You may benefit from timing your conversion early in the year.
Source of Funds for Tax on Conversion
Think carefully about where the money will come from to pay tax on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.
Periodic Payments and Conversions
Converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA when you’re taking substantially equal periodic payments.
Post-Retirement Roth Conversion
It can make sense to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA even after retirement.
Regulation Spikes Annuity Abuse
An August 2005 regulation addresses the use of annuities in converting a traditional IRA to a Roth.
Isolating Basis for a Roth Conversion
A strategy with great potential payoff.