The tax on your retirement account is already owed. Only the timing is still yours.
Every dollar in a traditional IRA or 401(k) has a silent partner. This is a short course in when to pay that partner — and a projection of your own household, year by year, to your planning age.
Four minutes. No account numbers, no Social Security number, nothing stored unless you ask for the report.
Most people have never been told the size of the bill.
A $1,000,000 traditional IRA is not $1,000,000. It is roughly $760,000 and an IOU to the IRS whose size depends on a tax rate nobody has set yet. A conversion is simply the decision to settle part of that IOU early, at a rate you can see, instead of later at a rate you cannot.
Five things to understand before you convert a dollar
No jargon you have not been given a definition for. Read it in six minutes, then run your own numbers.
What a Roth conversion actually is
You move money from a traditional IRA or 401(k) into a Roth account. The amount you move is added to your taxable income for that year, so you pay income tax on it now. In exchange, that money and everything it earns from then on comes out tax free, and it is never subject to required distributions during your lifetime.
Nothing leaves your household. It is the same money, standing on the other side of the tax line.
Why there is a window, and why it closes
For many households there is a stretch of years — usually after work income stops and before Social Security and required distributions begin — when taxable income falls into a valley. Converting during that valley fills up the cheap brackets that would otherwise go unused.
The window closes because of a rule with a date attached. Under current law, required minimum distributions begin at 73 if you were born between 1951 and 1959, and at 75 if you were born in 1960 or later. From that birthday onward the government sets a floor under your taxable income whether you need the money or not — and the bigger the account has grown, the higher that floor.
The three costs almost every calculator ignores
A conversion does not just move you up a bracket. It raises the single number that several other rules key off, and those knock-on effects are where simple calculators quietly mislead people.
- More of your Social Security becomes taxable. Up to 85% of your benefit can be pulled into taxable income depending on your provisional income. A conversion can push a benefit that was barely taxed into being mostly taxed.
- Your Medicare premium can rise, two years later. Medicare looks back at your income from two tax years earlier. A conversion in 2026 can raise your 2028 Part B and Part D premiums. Crossing a threshold is not automatically a mistake — but it is a real cost, and it should be counted.
- Your state may or may not join in. Some states tax conversions in full, some exclude retirement income, and some have no income tax at all. Treating an unmodelled state as though it were tax free is the most common way an estimate flatters itself.
Who this helps — and who it does not
Converting is not a universal good. It is a bet that your tax rate later will be higher than your tax rate now. If that bet is wrong, you have simply paid tax early for nothing.
Your Blueprint tests both sides. If leaving the accounts alone wins, the report opens by telling you so — in the first paragraph of the letter, not buried on page nine.
How your Blueprint is actually built
Nine questions in, a full annual simulation out. For every year between now and your planning age we compute your income, the taxable share of your Social Security, any required distribution, your federal tax across all brackets, your state tax where it is modelled, and your Medicare surcharge on the correct two-year lag.
Then we do it again, hundreds of times, against different conversion schedules — solving each year's conversion amount against the real tax calculation rather than estimating it from the width of a bracket. The schedule that leaves you the most after tax is the one you get.
- Every conversion amount is solved, not guessed
- The number of schedules tested is the real count, shown on the report
- Assumptions are printed, and you can change any of them and re-run
- Published tax figures are used where they exist; later years are labelled as projections, not law
The nine words that do all the work
Before you run the numbers
Can I undo a conversion if I change my mind?
Under current rules, generally no. Recharacterising a conversion was eliminated for conversions made after 2017. That is precisely why it is worth modelling the year before you do it rather than the April after.
Should I pay the tax out of the IRA itself?
Usually not, if you have another option. Withholding the tax from the converted amount means less money lands in the Roth, and if you are under 59½ the withheld portion can also be treated as a distribution. Your Blueprint models both so you can see the size of the difference rather than take it on faith.
Is this the same as a backdoor Roth?
No. A backdoor Roth is a way to fund a Roth when your income is too high to contribute directly. This is about converting money that is already in a traditional account. The pro-rata rule matters to both.
Does converting reduce my required distributions?
Yes — a smaller traditional balance produces a smaller required distribution. But a smaller RMD is not the same as saved tax. The money was always yours; what changes is when it is taxed and at what rate. Your report keeps those two ideas separate on purpose.
What if I move to a state with no income tax?
Then waiting may be worth more than converting. Tell the questionnaire where you expect to retire and it will be part of the projection.
Do I have to give you my email to see the result?
No. The full report appears on screen without one. An email is only needed if you want it sent to you or saved.
Anthony Resendez
I am Anthony Resendez — most people call me The Coach. I co-founded Global Financial Impact in San Jose, California, and I have spent more than twenty-two years in financial services helping families build stronger financial futures and helping licensed professionals build businesses that last.
Before any of it, I coached youth baseball for years. That is where the name came from, and it shaped everything about how I lead: mentorship, discipline, accountability, and genuine care for the person in front of me. After reaching financial independence in my early thirties, I committed to helping other people do the same — mentoring agents, developing leaders, and teaching systems for building agencies rooted in integrity and service.
I am a husband, a father of two, and a man of faith, and I believe in leading by example and treating people the way you would want to be treated. This tool exists because the question of when to pay the tax on your retirement account deserves arithmetic rather than a sales pitch. If the numbers say converting will not help your household, this report will tell you so plainly — and that answer is worth just as much as the other one.
Now run it on your own numbers.
Nine questions, about four minutes. You will get the year-by-year schedule, the assumptions behind it, and a signed PDF you can hand to your tax professional.
Educational projection. Not tax, legal or investment advice.