Should You Do a Roth Conversion in the Years Before Retirement?
The window between your final working years and required minimum distributions is often the most flexible tax planning period of your life. Income may dip, brackets may open up, and a partial Roth conversion during those years can reposition retirement dollars on your terms rather than the IRS’s schedule.
Whether a conversion makes sense depends on your current bracket, your expected bracket in retirement, how you would pay the tax bill, and your legacy goals. Converting too much in a single year can push you into a higher bracket or increase Medicare premiums, which is why many advisors model conversions over a multi-year window instead.
A good starting question: if tax rates rise in the future, which accounts would you rather be holding? Working through that answer with projections, not guesses, is where a plan starts to earn its keep.