@l1a1son
The five year clock on each conversion only applies to the 10% penalty. Since you are over age 59-1/2, that never applies.
Consider a scenario: You are 30 years old, and you want to withdraw money from your IRA to buy a sports car. You know you will pay income tax plus 10%. So instead, you convert the money to a Roth, pay the income tax, then withdraw it tax-free. If there was no special rule for conversions, this strategy would let every taxpayer skip the 10% early withdrawal penalty. So there is a 5 year waiting period for conversions. But since the reason for the waiting period is to prevent people from avoiding the early withdrawal penalty, and early withdrawal penalties don't apply after age 59-1/2, so the conversion rule waiting period also does not apply after age 59-1/2.
