Your Roth conversion year is probably this year.

A Roth IRA conversion moves money from a tax-deferred account (traditional IRA, 401k rollover) into a Roth IRA, where it grows tax-free and comes out tax-free in retirement.

The catch: you pay tax on the converted amount in the year you convert, at your current marginal bracket.

The opportunity: somewhere in the 45-65 window, most people have exactly one year where their marginal bracket is unusually low. Converting during that year is the difference between $40-$200K in lifetime tax savings.

The math

Imagine you have $200K in a traditional IRA. You expect to be in a 24% bracket in retirement (likely if you have any kind of pension, Social Security, plus RMDs).

• Convert during a 22% bracket year: $44K tax now → $156K in Roth growing tax-free forever
• Convert during a 12% bracket year: $24K tax now → $176K in Roth growing tax-free forever
• Don't convert: the full $200K grows, but you owe ~24% on every withdrawal in retirement

Twenty years later at 7% return, that $200K becomes $774K. Tax on the withdrawals over the next 20 years at 24% is roughly $186K. The 12% conversion year saved $24K up front and avoided $186K in retirement tax. Net benefit: $162K, just from timing.

What makes a year "your" Roth conversion year

Look for any year where your income drops temporarily:

1. Job transition — between jobs, sabbatical, career pivot
2. Spouse retires earlier than you — household income drops
3. You retire but haven't started Social Security — pure low-income window
4. One-time charitable deduction year — large donation pushes you below normal bracket
5. Year you sell a business — paradoxically can be a Roth year if you structure the sale right (or after the sale, in the following year)
6. Year you exercise options that hit alternative minimum tax — ironically opens a Roth window in the regular tax calculation

The pattern: your normal marginal bracket is 24-32%, but for some specific reason this year it's 12-22%. That gap is the Roth window.

The 4-year retirement window most people miss

The most common Roth window for retirees is the 4-year stretch between stopping work (age 62-66) and starting Required Minimum Distributions (age 73).

During this window:

• No paycheck
• Possibly no Social Security yet (if delaying to 70)
• No RMDs yet
• Living off cash savings or non-qualified accounts

This produces an artificially low marginal bracket. Converting $40-$80K/year during this window — over 4 years — moves $160-$320K into the Roth at the lowest possible tax rate.

This is the move that financial advisors really do not bring up enough.

What to do this week

Three actions:

1. Pull your last 5 years of marginal brackets (1040, line 16 divided by line 15). Project the next 5. Look for the dip. That's your conversion candidate year.
2. Check your IRA balance — anything in traditional IRAs or rolled-over 401(k)s is convertible. Roth 401(k)s are already Roth, no action needed.
3. Talk to a CPA who does Roth conversion planning (not just tax prep). The cost of the conversation is $300-$1,000. The cost of missing your conversion year is $40-$200K. Math is obvious.

If you do not have a CPA who knows this, fiduciary CFPs (NAPFA, XY Planning Network) generally do.

What this is not

This is not a recommendation to convert without running the numbers. The wrong year — converting in a 32% year because you didn't think it through — can cost you the same $40K in the wrong direction.

The action is "look for the window," not "convert now." If your numbers say this isn't your year, that's an answer too.

Next week: claim-age math for Social Security — the survivor benefit decision most couples get wrong.

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