Roth Conversion Decision Guide

An educational estimator. Move the sliders to describe your situation, and it estimates how much of a traditional IRA you might convert this tax year before the tax on the next dollar is higher than the rate you expect that dollar to face later. Use it to prepare for a conversation with your tax professional and adviser. It is not a recommendation.

Important: what this tool can and cannot do

This tool cannot, by itself, determine whether you should convert, how much, or when. Its results are hypothetical estimates based only on the numbers you enter and simplified assumptions.
It applies simplified 2026 federal tax rules, a single flat state rate, and 2026 Medicare IRMAA thresholds. It does not consider every rule that may affect you, including the alternative minimum tax, ACA premium credits, other credits and phase-outs, estate taxes, the five-year rules for Roth withdrawals, or how you pay the conversion tax.
Future tax rates, tax laws, investment returns and your own circumstances are unknown. Actual results will differ, and the differences may be significant.
A Roth conversion is taxable in the year it is completed and cannot be reversed. Review any conversion with a qualified tax professional before acting.
Over a long horizon it knows less than it appears to. It works from the balance you enter today and takes no account of what you will pay into the account in the years ahead, so for someone decades from retirement the comparison rate rests almost entirely on the growth rate you choose and on tax law staying as it is for that whole time. The further you are from required distributions, the rougher the illustration and the less weight it will bear.
Converting is not all or nothing, and this estimate is deliberately cautious about size. Nobody knows what future tax law will be, so we would rather move money to a Roth in measured amounts over several years than commit to a large conversion in one year on the strength of an estimate built on today's rules. This tool will not suggest more than a quarter of an account in a single tax year, however favourable the arithmetic looks, and it tells you when that limit is what you are seeing.

Household

Your age

Spouse's age

Plan for one spouse surviving (single tax brackets later)

Retirement account

Traditional IRA / 401(k) balance

Expected annual growth before RMDs

This year's income (before any conversion)

Wages, pensions, annuities and other ordinary income

Taxable interest and non-qualified dividends

Qualified dividends and long-term capital gains

Social Security (household, before Medicare deductions)

Tax-exempt interest (municipal bonds)

Itemized deductions (leave at $0 to use the standard deduction)

State income tax rate on the conversion

Some states, including Illinois, generally do not tax IRA distributions. Confirm how your state treats a Roth conversion.

Your goal and comparison rate

Social Security you expect once you claim (household, today's dollars)

Used only for the comparison rate, not for this year. If you have not claimed yet, put in what you expect: left at $0 the comparison rate assumes you never claim, which makes it too low. If you are already receiving it, leave this alone and the figure you entered above is used.

Tax rate you expect your heirs to pay on inherited IRA money

Safety cushion for year-end surprises

Funds can pay larger distributions than expected late in the year. The estimate stops this far below the estimated maximum.

Estimated conversion room this year

Estimated added income tax

Medicare premium change

All-in cost per $1 converted

Federal, 3.8% surtax, state and Medicare premium changes, averaged over the amount converted.

Comparison rate

Cost of each next $5,000 Comparison rate Estimate

Where the thresholds fall

Threshold	Conversion to reach it	Cost per $1 just below	Average cost to that point

Cost per $1 converted, including federal and state tax and the 3.8% surtax. A Medicare step is different in kind: crossing it by a single dollar adds a whole year of premium surcharge, so that is shown next to the step in dollars per year rather than spread across the dollars before it. Rows in bold are within the estimate.

Email me this report

Optional. We will email you a copy of your estimate with the assumptions behind it.

Name Email

I agree that Deep Blue Financial LLC may email me this report, keep the information I entered, and contact me about it. I can ask it to stop contacting me at any time; it will still keep a record of my request and of what I entered, because the rules for investment advisers require it to.

If you request a report, the information you entered and your contact details go to Deep Blue Financial LLC, which uses them to send the report and to follow up with you, and keeps them for at least five years as the record of your request that the rules for investment advisers require. Sending it uses the firm's own website host and its Microsoft 365 mailbox and nothing else; the firm does not sell your information or pass it to anyone else. Asking the firm to stop contacting you does not delete that record, because it is not allowed to. See our privacy policy. If you do not request a report, your entries stay in your browser and are not sent to anyone.