Beware of the financial scammers that are replying to this excellent video. Lots of scammers on the responses. Never trust anyone that responds with a "trusted advisor". PS Nice video Ryan it helped confirm a few things for me.

One of the best, clearest, most comprehensive, and most instructive videos on the all of the variable and implications of various conversion approaches. Thank you

Isn’t Traditional IRA one of the worst assets to pass to your kids? They are forced to withdraw within 10 years(?) and subjected to their income tax level, not to mention State dependent tax as well.

always examples with a married couple. There are a lot of singles out here ya know!

For those who are charitably inclined you should possibly model QCDs into the distributions to see how it could come out.  It may still be preferable to give to charities of your choice than to pay it to the government in taxes.

Can you do 2m and 3m IRA scenario comparison for single household?

This is a really good analysis. The one missing item is a market crash. If you do conversions and then there are significant flat lining or reductions in market value, you just paid tax, and your after 75 forced distributions would be much less. it would be interesting in your optimal case to run that scenario.

Excellent video. I was ready to hate it at first thinking it was another no intelligence Roth conversion video. But you obviously know what you're talking about. Subscribed!

Ryan, thank you for the great presentation.  I was looking at IRA conversion options in detail and was concerned about many of the issues you raised.  One point, the possibility of an early death by one member of the couple, was  particularly important to us.  My husband is 12 years older than I am.  The fact that, as a female, my life expectancy is about 5 years longer than my husband's makes the age difference effectively 17 years.  This 17-year age gap makes it far more likely that I will be taxed as a single taxpayer for many years.  So to us, moving money out of an IRA, where you can't fully control the distributions and resulting taxes, made a lot of sense.

Best option is to retire early at 60 and burn through 401k until early 80s. RMDs will automatically come in control. In case of widow filing, taxes will be still in control. Bokerage acct stays untouched and available for heirs.

Great video. The PASSING SPOUSE factor is the one that many never really consider. Again without knowing our end date, there is no way to feasible "math" this out to perfection, just like the optimal social security ages, but at least you can prepare for what you CAN prepare for.

Excellent analysis. I kept looking for the paywall. 😉

excellent video

Great point at the 4:30 mark. I have been commenting on several other videos that the 22% and 24% brackets dont exist due to the senior deduction phase out. Your 24.64% and 26.88% numbers are spot on and it is even higher at 30.24% if you have any zero taxed capital gains that become taxable due to the conversion. I am at the top of the 12% bracket comprised mostly of capital gains. Adding municipal bond interest puts me just below the first IRMAA bracket. A $100k Roth conversion will cost over 42% including 12% federal 6% state 15% cap gains previously taxed at zero 3.24% phase out of senior deduction and 6% tier 2  IRMAA surcharge.

Great stuff.

Ryan, great overview of the challenges retirees face in handling large balances in traditional IRAs. There are lots of potholes as you point out--loss of the extra deduction for retirees, IRMAA, and the impact of being widowed on withholding rates.
I retired at 60 and our biggest financial assets were traditional IRAs. My wife is older so when she hit 70, we started reducing her IRA balance through QCDs. We've been blessed so our charitable giving is about 25% of our living expenses. I've been moving money out of my IRA to live on and to my Roth since I retired. We've chosen to limit what we take out of my IRA so we stay in the 12% federal bracket--keeping qualified dividends in our brokerage account tax free. This approach seems to be working for us. As you point out, the right strategy is highly dependent on individual circumstances.

Tax bracket is indexed!

Love seeing this kind of comparative analysis, Ryan.  I think this also shows why, in your video about people who might be better off converting 100% to Roth, all had pensions or some other form of guaranteed income that probably raised their base income into the 22% or 24% brackets before RMDs.

I agree with your tiebreaker of the chance tax rates increase and the widow tax however the tiebreaker for me is the ability to harvest capital gains tax free to the top of the 12% bracket instead of converting to Roth. It has the dual benefit of recognizing capital gains that otherwise will be taxed at 18.8% once SS and RMDs kick in and spending down the taxable account means even though I will have higher RMDs more of them will be taxed in lower tax brackets since they won’t stack on top of other income.

Ryan, this is one of the better videos on the topic, thanks for sharing this! This is great for those with $2M in pre-taxed accounts, but where do these 4 scenarios break down at a $3M account and at a $4M account? This is what people are looking for.

8:33 I'm not following the math here. $2M divided by 5 years is $500K/yr.  How do you get $750K/yr?

It also appears that continued growth of the pre-taxed account is ignored here... 10:45

Lastly, why do people use emojis of 95 YO people to represent 65 YO people? Makes me feel older than I already am. LOL