Pay Taxes on the Seed or the Harvest?

People say pay taxes on the seed, not the harvest. That's terrible advice. It's not about the amount of tax you pay. It's about the tax rates. That's how you decide whether you should be doing Roth or traditional contributions. That's how you decide if you should be making Roth conversions. You'd be thinking about who is going to spend it. What tax bracket are they going to be? For example, we have substantial tax deferred accounts. We're not converting any of them because they're all going to charity. And that charity's tax bracket is 0%. It'd be stupid to do a Roth conversion on money. You're leaving a charity anyway. And one of the greatest mistakes out there is making Roth contributions or doing Roth conversions while you're in a high tax bracket and then having money end up in the hands of a charity or an heir in a low tax bracket. Even if you expect to spend the money yourself, there's a very good chance, if you're like most people, that you're gonna be able to withdraw at a substantially lower marginal tax rate than your rate at the time when you made the initial contribution.