Craig Wear, CFP®Craig Wear, CFP® | Expert in Roth Conversions & Tax-Efficient Retirement Strategies for IRA Millionaires

When NOT to Do a Roth Conversion

5 Jun 2024 · 0 min

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0:28

Short YouTube clip (Craig Wear, CFP®) explaining when Roth conversions are not advisable. Main point: retirees already withdrawing around 3–4% (or more) of their IRA for living expenses, with no other liquidity ‘bucket’ to draw from, are generally poor candidates for aggressive Roth conversions; instead, they should slow conversions. The piece focuses on practical distribution/tax-planning tradeoffs for retirees.

On one of the podcasts, I talk about the four circumstances in which you probably don't want to do a Roth. Let me just hit the biggest one. The biggest one really has to do with if you're already retired and you're already withdrawing, oh, say, 3 or 4% or more of your IRA for living expenses, and there's no other bucket that you could take the money from, then you probably are not going to be a great candidate to do aggressive Roth conversions. We probably would have you slow your roll.