Just "chewing over" this part a little....
Any withdrawal you make before 1/1/2026 will be both early and non-qualified. The "price" for making a non-qualified withdrawal is paying regular income tax on the earnings but not the principal. There is no penalty for you for making an early withdrawal because you are over 59-1/2. Any withdrawal you make after 1/1/2026 will be qualified, so withdrawals of earnings will be tax-free. And even if your withdrawals are considered "early" due to the separate clock that runs for each conversion, there is no penalty at your age.
So, then, let's see if I got this:
The 10% penalty is related to the separate clocks. ( A separate clock for each year I do a conversion). And I avoid this penalty since I'm over 59 1/2.
The "tax on earnings" is based only on the first clock. No matter when I do conversions, as long as I don't touch the earnings till 2026, I'm tax free from then on out.
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Correct?
