We recently met with a very successful 65-year old doctor and his 70-year old wife. The doctor had accumulated over $8,000,000 in his regular IRA while his wife’s IRA totaled $1,100,000. Based on a 6% investment return, their Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) were projected to grow to more than $1,000,000 by age 87.

Fortunately, the doctor understood the benefits of making Roth IRA conversions to achieve tax-free growth and distributions. However, he was confused by the generic advice he’d received which was to convert only if he thought tax rates would increase in the future. He couldn’t figure out when to start and end such conversions, how much to convert, and exactly how much those efforts could save him. Below, we discuss how our advice helped his family save over $5,200,000 in future income taxes.