Not sure I totally understand your comment.
In essence, when you put away income in a traditional pre-tax account and take the deduction now, you are saving at the marginal tax rate. If you are in the 35% tax bracket, you save paying 35 cents for every dollar you defer.
Later, when withdrawing funds, you pay taxes at your effective tax rate which in my case is half of my marginal rate.
It’s really marginal both ways but when you are working the money you are deducting is at the top if the brackets while making money in retirement it’s generally starting from the bottom of the brackets (0% rate for $26k for married for example). If you have no pension or no significant non retirement assets your approach works but if you have other income you can’t just use effective rate in retirement.
In general, over 95% of folks have a lower effective rate in retirement than while working so Roths are way overrated but there are times they work (inherit a ton, investments did phenomenally well beyond market, pension that’s over half your base income). Most people also forget to adjust tax brackets and std deduction in retirement for inflation and massively overestimate what they will owe.
I should note you’d need about $300k in retirement income (married couple) right now to have a 16% effective fed tax rate in retirement - and thats assuming its not LT Capital gains income. Very few people have that income period, much less retirement. Even if you are modeling $300k in say 20 years, keep in mind with inflation you’ll be about the equiv of $180k income today and closer to 10-11% effective rate.
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