As great as the Roth conversion optimizer is, I would like to be able to tune the results:
- to keep state taxable income below big step-ups in state tax bracket (can you say "California"?)
- to leave room for withdrawals from the taxable account in the zero percent capital gains bracket (a realistic option if staying within the 12% federal bracket).
I know that I can manually adjust the conversion amount in any year, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to see how much room there is.. especially if the tax on the conversions is included in the subsequent year.
Has anyone attempted this, or done anything similar that might help me find a simple way to do this?
@jason-blattyprotonmail-com Hey Jason, I'm not sure you can get to this level of fidelity with Pralana, also because it's basing everything on assumptions/projections so it's never going to be too accurate. We use a tool called Holistiplan for precise surgery like this. We load up the 2024 return, then copy it to a 2025 (which then kicks in the tax law changes, etc) and tweak it with any deltas for the current year. It then clearly shows *all* the guardrails graphically (ACA/Medicare IRMAA subsidy cliffs, LTCG brackets, NIIT, on and on). You can then assess the impact of adding incremental income (Roth conversions, bonuses, etc), loss/gain harvesting, etc to get dialed in very precisely. It's not a consumer facing tool so maybe your tax planner uses it, or give us a shout and we'd be happy to help. There may be other tools like dinkytown.net that help.
