Hubby (age 65) and I (64) are FIREd since 2017 and 2019 respectively. We do NOT need SS to live on. That being said, we thought we would go ahead and take it (both of us) next year after I start Medicare (we have been keeping our income as low as possible for health insurance reasons).
I have just started looking at how SS income is taxed. Because we both had professional jobs we will receive pretty high monthly SS income... I am guessing at least 48K per year. So according to one calculator I tried, this would mean that we would pay taxes on 85% of that SS income, plus on about $15K investment income, plus whatever we decide to withdraw from our IRAs.
Here is my question (I am explicitly not trying to be too detailed here):
Instead of taking SS for a few years, would it make sense to do ROTH conversions for as large amount as we were willing to bite the bullet and pay taxes for? It now seems likely that we will end up with over $100K of income once we start taking SS. Delaying SS more or less makes it easier to do the ROTH conversions....
I have just started looking at how SS income is taxed. Because we both had professional jobs we will receive pretty high monthly SS income... I am guessing at least 48K per year. So according to one calculator I tried, this would mean that we would pay taxes on 85% of that SS income, plus on about $15K investment income, plus whatever we decide to withdraw from our IRAs.
Here is my question (I am explicitly not trying to be too detailed here):
Instead of taking SS for a few years, would it make sense to do ROTH conversions for as large amount as we were willing to bite the bullet and pay taxes for? It now seems likely that we will end up with over $100K of income once we start taking SS. Delaying SS more or less makes it easier to do the ROTH conversions....