@jdbollinger wrote:
Thank you all for the input, I greatly appreciate it! One thing I know I'm going to do going forward is pay quarterly estimated taxes to make sure I'm in the safe harbor, so I don't need to think more about it.
One very simply option would be to make the conversion in the first quarter of the year instead of the last. That way, you can spread out the estimated payment over the whole year, and benefit from having that money in the mean time (maybe in an interest bearing account) and still be in compliance with the penalty rules. The IRS wants to see the estimated payment spread out over the whole year if the conversion is done late, but they also allow the payments to be spread out over the whole year if the conversion is done early.
