A former state employee, I have an unvested retirement account. Should I roll it over to my TSP or my Roth?

Question

I'm now a federal employee and I have no plans on returning to my old state job.

The state retirement is a defined benefit plan and the account is earning about 5% a year. I think I could do better than that in my Roth IRA but I don't want to pay any kind of tax penalty in the rollover, so if that is the consequence, I would probably go with the TSP.

Answer 1

If it was tax deferred you roll it into a non tax deferred you will pay taxes on it ..

Answer 2

Anything rolled from a pre-tax account to a Roth is subject to ordinary income tax. There is no 10% penalty though.