Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Advice for Mom - Convert to Roth or not?

Hello all,

I'm trying to help my Mom make the most of her retirement savings in a somewhat complicated, to me at least, situation. I'll try to leave out (most) of the complicating factors that I don't think impact the decision for simplicity but if questions lead to needing more info, will be happy to share.

- Mom is 70Yo and has all expenses covered without drawing from her tax deferred IRA.
-Mom's only financial assets are her IRA.
-22% tax bracket and likely to stay there for a while
-Any taxes due from conversions will have to come from the IRA.

The complicating factor?

- Mom is married to Husband (78Yo) that covers all expenses. If he were to pass before her, she would almost certainly need to start drawing from her IRA for living expenses and would be in the lowest tax bracket (maybe owe nothing after exemptions, etc.).

So, at a 22% tax rate it may or may not make sense to convert but if there's a higher probability of taking withdrawals at a 0-12% tax rate it probably doesn't.

Any thoughts or questions?

Thanks as always, Gutrageous.

Statistics: Posted by gutrageous — Sat Sep 07, 2024 8:43 pm

---