All good comments.
Taxes are at historic lows, I think with all the things going on, taxes will have to go up. Also, there is strong evidence that the law that allows our heirs to take the IRA/ROTH over their lifetime will change to a requirement to take the distribution within 5 years.
"petsect" has a good point, he uses TurboTax to test his conversion amount to see the effect on taxes. I do that too. I have 7 years to convert my wife's IRA to a ROTH, but I collect SS in 5, so it looks like doing to conversion will save the most in taxes.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is that you can have a "do over". You can "convert" any amount you want this year and recharacterize it by October 15th of next year. It's like placing a bet on a horse race after the race is over. Restriction apply, so be sure you follow the rules.
If you convert, say, $100,000 this year and when you do your taxes next year you find out it puts you in a very high tax bracket, you can put some of that money back into the IRA like it never even happened (no penalty from the IRS).
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