How are taxes paid on a IRA to Roth IRA rollover

[chriswlezien]

I have some a good amount of money saved up in a traditional IRA and wanted to wait until I got married (joint filing with a low income spouse) to roll it over into a Roth IRA, which I will be doing this year. My question is how are the taxes paid on a IRA to Roth conversion; is it paid out of the balance being rolled over, or do I need to pay the hefty tax bill with post tax earnings?

[MichaelL1 · Accepted solution]

You can do it both ways, however, if you pay the taxes out the money rolled over and are under 59 1/2 you will have a 10% early withdrawal penalty on that portion, as it would then be a withdrawal and a rollover.

One option you may want to consider is rolling over some each year, to avoid a large tax bite.  So maybe 20% a year for 5 years.