Should I choose a Roth or traditional IRA?

Question

I am 27 years old and currently make $50-55k. I have a college degree, am in sales, and obviously expect to make quite a bit more money in the future than I do now. My wife contributes to a teacher pension fund, which is nice for her (and me too). My company has a Simple IRA (instead of 401k) that matches dollar for dollar up to 3% of my income. Right now I am only saving the 3% and need to improve that. I'd appreciate any expert advice from somebody who knows about investing. I always hear that the Roth IRA is the way to go because you have already paid the tax...but I feel I may net more money paying the tax as I withdraw in retirement. Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

Basically what the advice is is if you feel you're going to be in a higher tax bracket when you retire than right now, you should go with the ROTH, if you're going to be in a lower bracket when you retire than right now, go with the traditional IRA. There are income limits that go with each, and I have attached links with information regarding both.

Answer 2

It all depends on whether your contribution to the traditional IRA would be tax-deductible. You haven't reported anything unusual in your situation, so I'd go with the conventional wisdom that you take the bird in the hand and contribute wherever you can that reduces your taxes today, then fund a Roth, then fund a taxable account.

So if the investment options in the SIMPLE IRA are good, then I'd seriously consider maxing that out before funding any other IRA, because that money escapes FICA taxes as well as being income-tax deferred.

This requires more tax expertise than investing expertise. You'd probably get better answers in the Taxes section of Answers.