Roth Conversion Analysis
A multi-year conversion schedule sized against your bracket, your Medicare thresholds, and your retirement date, with the tax cost modeled before you commit to any of it.
The short answer
A Roth conversion analysis decides how much pre-tax savings to convert in each year between your last paycheck and age 73, or 75 if you were born in 1960 or later. The schedule is sized to fill bracket room without crossing a Medicare threshold, and the lifetime tax cost is modeled against doing nothing.
A conversion is a decision to pay tax now to avoid more of it later. Whether that trade works depends on numbers, and the numbers are knowable before you commit.
The opportunity is a window. Between your last paycheck and the year Required Minimum Distributions begin, salary has stopped and RMDs have not started. Taxable income falls to a level it will not reach again, and bracket room opens that was never available during peak earning years.
The window closes on a schedule you can calculate. Born in 1960 or later and retiring at 67, you get eight filing years before RMDs start at 75, and the first one still carries salary.
What the analysis produces
The window, dated
When it opens, when it closes, and which events narrow it: a pension starting, a deferred compensation payout, or claiming Social Security.
An annual amount
How much to convert in each year, sized to fill a target bracket and stop below the next IRMAA threshold.
The tax cost, year by year
What you write a check for, and where that money comes from. Paying conversion tax out of the converted balance weakens the result.
The comparison
Lifetime tax under the schedule against lifetime tax doing nothing, including the RMDs that grow as the divisor shrinks.
The case against
Conditions under which converting less, or not at all, is the better answer.
Who this is for
Households with a large pre-tax balance and years remaining before RMDs begin. The larger the 401(k) and the longer the runway, the more the schedule is worth. If RMDs have already started, the analysis shifts toward managing them rather than getting ahead of them.
The Roth conversion window guide works through the reasoning in detail, and the tax planning window essay covers why the timing matters as much as the amount.
Why it has to be multi-year
A single large conversion pushes through brackets and usually crosses an IRMAA threshold. The same total spread across five years can stay inside both. The schedule matters more than the total.
It also has to share the window with everything else competing for it. A withdrawal, a stock sale, and a conversion all consume the same bracket room in the same year, which is why this runs inside the full income plan rather than beside it.
Questions about Roth conversion analysis
Talk it through
The schedule is only useful when it is built on your balances, your bracket, and your dates. In the first conversation, Robert tells you whether your window is worth that modeling.
This is educational and not individualized tax advice. Conversions are irreversible and the right amount depends on your own balances and bracket.
Every engagement produces the same three things: a written retirement income plan, a multi-decade tax projection, and a coordinated Social Security and Roth conversion sequence. For both of you.
Schedule Your ConsultationEight pieces of one plan, not eight engagements. See how they fit together or the five phases that deliver them.
The other seven: Retirement Income Planning, Tax-Efficient Withdrawal Strategy, Executive Retirement Planning, Social Security Optimization, Early Retirement Feasibility, Ongoing Retirement Tax Planning, Legacy Planning Coordination.
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