See it in action
Four households, four decisions
Real output from RothTaxPlanner itself — not mocked-up numbers. Each pair compares two strategies exactly the way the tool does: Scenario A vs. Scenario B, side by side.
Jack and Jill
First-time users
Ages 68 and 66, a straightforward household: $500,000 traditional, $40,000 Roth, $100,000 taxable, both already claiming Social Security. They just wanted to answer one question — pay the taxes now, or later?
A: no conversions
B: convert to top of 22% bracket
Lifetime taxes
$134,500 / $113,083
Lifetime IRMAA
$0 / $4,210
Ending portfolio
$848,378 / $627,283
Ending Roth
$156,805 / $627,283
The result: converting cost a little in Medicare premiums, but saved over $21,000 in lifetime taxes and left four times as much sitting in a Roth account their kids won't owe a dime of income tax on.
Empty-nesters Tim and Carol
Watching IRMAA
Ages 66 and 64. Carol's still consulting part-time, $45,000/yr through age 67, on top of $850,000 traditional and $200,000 taxable. They wanted to convert aggressively while they had cash flow to cover the tax bill — without realizing how close that would push them to a Medicare surcharge.
A: convert to top of 24% bracket
B: convert to top of 12% bracket only
Lifetime taxes
$221,137 / $204,565
Lifetime IRMAA
$23,304 / $0
Ending portfolio
$1,000,715 / $1,300,145
Ending Roth
$1,000,715 / $1,300,145
The result: the aggressive plan actually cost more — $23,304 in Medicare surcharges they didn't know they were signing up for, plus a smaller ending balance besides. Pacing the conversions around Carol's consulting income won on every single number.
Buyout Nate and Priya
The origin story
Ages 61 and 59. Nate's employer just offered a $180,000 early-retirement buyout, paid as a single lump sum this year, on top of $700,000 in traditional accounts. This is the exact situation that started RothTaxPlanner.
A: take the buyout, convert nothing
B: take the buyout, convert to the same bracket ceiling
Lifetime taxes
$270,332 / $165,571
Lifetime IRMAA
$0 / $2,644
Ending portfolio
$605,093 / $382,389
Ending Roth
$165,480 / $382,389
Why converting more actually cost less: the buyout is taxed the same either way — that part's fixed. What changes is the $700,000 sitting untouched in their Traditional account. Left alone, it keeps compounding for 34 years and gets taxed on the way out through decades of RMDs — often at higher rates than today, since a bigger balance later pushes into bigger brackets. Converted now, it's a smaller, capped-rate tax bill paid once, and everything it grows into after that is never taxed again. That's how Nate and Priya saved $104,000 in lifetime taxes for a $2,644 Medicare cost — a bigger bill today beat a much bigger one spread across retirement.
Divorced Brad
Directional use
Brad's rebuilding his retirement plan solo after a divorce settlement — half the IRA, a small Roth, and a lot of open questions. RothTaxPlanner's tax brackets and household structure are built around married-filing-jointly couples, so Brad uses it a little differently: he enters his numbers as a household of one and adjusts the bracket fields down toward single-filer territory himself.
We're not going to pretend a single-filer walkthrough here would be precise — the tool wasn't built for that math. But it gets Brad close enough to walk into his CFP meeting with real questions instead of a blank stare, which was the whole point.
