When is a Roth IRA Better than A Traditional IRA?
by Shane Flait (2009)

 

Both a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA are government qualified retirement savings plans. But the Roth IRA tax properties of one can be a better deal for some people than those of the other. This article lists their tax properties and who may benefit most from a Roth.

 

Roth and traditional IRAs illustrate the two ways that these government-regulated retirement plans offer tax-advantages geared to foster saving for your retirement from working income. The traditional IRA, as for most qualified plans, is advantaged by tax-deductible contributions and tax-deferred growth of those contributions.

 

But withdrawals of all this ‘untaxed’ money during retirement are subject to income tax as they come out. Income tax rates are progressive so where your income is high, marginal tax rates will rob a significant fraction of your withdrawals. Further aggravating this tax loss is that traditional IRAs – as with most qualified plans- are subject to Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) after your turn 70½. And RMD rules increase the required withdrawal as you age.

 

Roth IRAs are tax-advantaged – on the other hand - by tax free growth of contributions and tax free withdrawals. The drawback is that they can only be funded by after-tax contributions. So, it’s more difficult to contribute to a Roth IRA for a given income – and more so the higher your income is.

 

But in addition to tax-free withdrawals, Roth IRAs have no RMDs. This allows you to leave your money in your Roth IRA to enjoy the benefits of tax-free growth.

 

Both tax-deferred and tax-free growth allows investment earning to grow faster – at a higher compounding rate than ‘annually taxable’ investments. And higher potential compounding rates are a significant advantage of all qualified plans have over investments subject to ‘annual taxation’.

 

Typically, people have a higher income during their working years when they make contributions to their qualified plans. And have a lower income during their retirement years. This favors making tax-deductible contributions while working and subject to higher marginal tax rates and withdrawing under low marginal tax rates in retirement. And the relatively lower is your retirement marginal rate compared to your contributing marginal rate – the better. And that’s true for both higher and lower earners.

 

But if you’re a higher earner and will have a high retirement income using a traditional IRA you’ll lose a lot of its benefits to high marginal tax rates in retirement especially under the forced MRDs. But higher earners are limited or prevented from contributing to Roth IRAs to dodge this circumstance. 

 

Those with high retirement income probably also typically have high savings. So they’re not necessarily in need of pulling money out of their IRA – traditional or Roth – for retirement living. To them the Roth IRA serves as the perfect – and better- investment. It grows tax free and you needn’t withdraw from it. And if you do withdraw, high marginal tax rates won’t affect your tax-free withdrawals. 

 

So the Roth IRA would serve their purposes better. But getting money into a Roth IRA for high earners is the problem.

 

Recent legislation has allowed higher earners to convert qualified plan money to a Roth IRA in 2010 – though direct contributions from their working income are still restricted or not allowed. Conversion of will require paying income tax on any qualified plan money transferred to a Roth IRA.

 

As an incentive to convert under the legislation, any amount converted during 2010 and be split so that half is taxed in 2011, and half in 2012. That can help lower the tax loss to convert.

 

High earners who contributed to traditional IRAs, who have a lot of savings, and who may not wish to tap their IRAs during retirement but leave it for a legacy ought to find a way to convert as tax-efficiently as possible to a Roth.

 

Shane Flait is a writer and educator. See more at www.EasyRetirementKnowHow.com