DAVE:

I’m here with my business partner, Tim, today and he recently helped a client convert $160,000 to Roth and pay no additional tax. So, we wanted to share this story with you because I know that we get quite a few questions around Roth conversions and when it might make sense and things like that. Hopefully this story can help you as you’re evaluating your own financial life in retirement. So, Tim, how did this conversation come up with the client and just tell us how it all started.  

TIM:

Yeah, Dave, my favorite part about all of this is it actually didn’t start with the goal of how can we convert more money from IRA to Roth IRA? But it started with their values–what was most important to them? And most important to them was maximizing charitable giving over their lifetime.

With them being business owners and looking at potentially selling the business in the future, we were doing some future tax planning, looking at ways we could either accelerate some of the taxes that they might have to pay in the future or, give to charity so that they could deduct taxes now, rather than spreading out their charitable giving over their lifetime.