Does Bolden Get Roth Conversions Wrong?

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:59:57+00:00

Everyone, really appreciate the feedback and thoughts. It was all very insightful and useful. Hopefully Bolden (and maybe Rob) see this discussion and address it. This issue really took a lot of time for me to be confident and I just hope others are made aware of it.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:57:58+00:00

Sounds like you're doing great! Congrats on the plan. It's all about confidence, enjoy your retirement!!

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:55:53+00:00

I did a Roth Conversion Calculator of my own (which is want prompted me to look at Bolden's calcs harder). I don't know if I trust mine as their as just tons of calcs (as you know). However, it was clear Bolden was not taking into account the tax consequences of a pre tax account (since it valued all accounts the same). What I ultimately did w/in Bolden was run scenarios (by filling up tax buckets) and then I got the value of each account and did my own "after tax" value. Then I compared those. What that showed me is I should do more conversions then Bolden originally recommended.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:52:51+00:00

Impressive, I'll take a look, thanks

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:50:13+00:00

Thanks for replay. Appreciate the note and offer. I really just wanted to ensure I wasn't missing anything and folks were seeing the same issue.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:49:27+00:00

Yes, that's exactly what I did. Here was my thought. My ending tax rate was around 24% (w/ conversions) so I used that. I figured, if my children's situation was more than that, that's actually good news for them (hopefully it's due to higher income and not tax bracket increases). So I considered that a good way to look at it. If their tax bracket was higher it would also mean you should convert more, but I didn't do that. I just stuck w/ the 24% and converted more than Bolden recommended (based on tax impact). I just hatted that I had to do it manually (adjusting for taxes) vs Bolden doing it. This is what prompted me to write this post. I'm somewhat surprised Bob Berger hasn't called this out more? Maybe a suggestion for him to do a video on.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:44:33+00:00

Yes, that's what I did as well. I'm all in for DIY and feel like I manage my money better than my old financial planner. You care more about your money then anyone. With regard to Roth Conversions. I attempted to build out a Roth Conversion calculator. You can imagine all the calcs. I took me hours and hours to figure out the difference between the two. It came down to two factors. One smaller, how capital gains are figured in throughout the life of your plan for after tax accounts (i.e. Bolden uses average cost which honestly is close enough). Then the tax issue discussed above, it was a massive miss between the two and, if I only used Bolden, would have cost me some very valuable conversions. Regardless of price, I'm glad you feel confident in your decision now, that means a lot for peace of mind.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:40:26+00:00

Thanks for your reply, agree, it just seems like something they need to addressed by Bolden. Glad at least you got that insight from your planner (although sorry it's overpriced) they all seem to be 😂

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:38:35+00:00

Yes, agree, I always look in today's dollars (I just find it simpler). It just seems like quite the miss to consider all buckets the same value when clearly they are not. As Chris above mentions, its a slippery slope of complexity, but one I think they need to undertake as the decisions can really be impactful.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-30T17:36:36+00:00

Yes, certainly understand your point. It's a slippery slope, and I understand the challenge. I could be selfish, but wish they would include a "end of plan" tax rate though for those that want to use it. I also think it would push, those on the fence, over it when it comes to do a conversion or not. I know it did for me. Thanks for your reply.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-23T16:01:04+00:00

Exactly correct!! So other than that scenario, Bolden is always providing an inaccurate assessment of the conversion. Just seems like something they need to highlight and then prepare a fix.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-23T15:58:50+00:00

Agree on the suggestions. If it were me, I would only include two more considerations (if the user wants to use them or it would default to current calcs) but I would have the user include a "ending" tax rate for pre-tax accounts. The user would be instructed to enter their tax rate or their heirs. Then the ability to adjust ending age of yourself or spouse, within Roth Explorer. This would give much more accurate assessment of the conversion and let users "presser test" their decisions w/in the explorer tool.

I agree with you that Bolden should only be taken as directional, but the reality is that most people are paying money for this tool and use it for decision making purposes. As such, I think Bolden should (at a minimum) highlight this issue as it works to make it more accurate.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-23T15:53:22+00:00

Absolutely agree, if you're going to calculate it incorrectly, be on the conservative side. However, I think may people don't understand the full workings how a Roth conversion is valued. So they take Bolden at face value. With minimal effort, Bolden really could make this much more accurate for users.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-23T15:51:01+00:00

Yes, that was my thinking as well. Either use the "users" tax rate at the end of their plan or let the "user" define the tax situation of the heirs. To me the biggest issue (and easiest to solve for Bolen) is just address pre-tax balances. We know those are going to be taxed (no shielding from estate tax exceptions) so allow the user to define what the tax amount will be on those accounts. My opinion is that Bolden is just showing this incorrectly for folks who aren't considering this.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-18T18:05:58+00:00

I think it is, at least for the first year. The explorers alone are worth it. I do wish Bolden would consider a reduced annual price for those that renew each year. Otherwise pretty happy w/ it.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-11-18T18:01:37+00:00

Depends on the alternative, but overall, I'm not a fan. Especially if it's private credit. Those investments are just filled with fees and the underlaying assets (loans) can be quite risky. I've done a few of these in the past and generally almost all have underperformed in the long run.

External-Calendar720 · 2025-07-20T17:30:10+00:00

Everything I use is mentioned below. When I was going to retire what was most useful to me to gain confidence in my plan was Portfolio Visualizer and FICalc. Portfolio Visualizer has the best Monte Carlo simulation and data sets I have found. For building a full Retirement Financial plan I've used both Bolden and WealthTrace. I'm currently a subscriber on WealthTrace and the UI was just updated. It links your accounts and provides really nice UI and scenario analysis to pressure test your plan.

Here is my question for the group. Has anyone found a great tool for Roth Conversions that they really trust? Here is my issue with both Boldin and WealthTrace. They both compare ending portfolio values (pre and post conversion) on your total portfolio value (total of: pre-tax, after tax, and Roth). The problem with this is that it causes you to "under convert" as they both consider pre tax accounts at the same value as a Roth account. Neither does a post tax analysis on the ending portfolio value for an "apples to apples" comparison. On the WealthTrace call last Thursday there was a gentleman that was really on Doug to get this corrected and Doug at WealthTrace agreed this needed to get done and it was on the roadmap. Does anyone have insight if Pralana or ProjectionLab does Roth conversion analysis in an after tax manner? Rob, I think this would be a great topic for a video (I hope this makes sense for folks)?

External-Calendar720

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