If this seems like an opportunity you want to explore, it makes sense for you to meet financial and tax professionals to evaluate your situation. Expect your professionals to help you:
- Evaluate whether this is the right move for you,
- Understand the amount you would need to pay in taxes upon conversion,
- Make sure you have funds outside the IRA to pay the taxes,
- Plan whether you should do this all in 2010 or spread it out over time, and
- If you choose to move your Roth IRA funds to a new provider, ensure that your funds move safely from your old provider to your new provider via a trustee-to-trustee transfer.
Where to Find More Information?
The tax treatment of IRAs is a complex subject that is thoroughly discussed in IRS Publication 590. We recommend that you obtain a copy of this publication from the IRS website, www.irs.gov, and study it. Any discussion of the tax treatment of IRAs in this brochure merely touches on some key points and cannot hope to duplicate the thoroughness of the IRS publication.