I will be leaving a job at a not-for-profit and have the opportunity to roll over my 503b into an IRA. I was hoping to roll it into a Roth but I found the AGI limit was $100,000, which my wife and I exceeded by a few thousand dollars this year. The question is, would it be a good idea to max out our contributions to employer 401k plans and try and defer any capital gains this year in order to keep our AGI under 100k? I am 38 and have about 45k to roll over. I can pay the taxes with other cash and I don't forsee our AGI going down in the next few years so this should be the time to try and roll over into a Roth. Are there any other stratagies I should employ or should I avoid this and stick with a regular IRA (I ran the numbers and a Roth comes out better, especially if I don't slip into a lower tax bracket at retirement)? My plan now is to roll my 503b into a regular IRA and run the numbers near the end of the year and see if we kept our AGI low enough to qualify for the Roth. If you have any ideas on this matter I would appreciate them before I bother a tax advisor on this.

[[I will be leaving a job at a not-for-profit and have the opportunity to roll over my 503b into an IRA.
I was hoping to roll it into a Roth but I found the AGI limit was $100,000, which my wife and I
exceeded by a few thousand dollars this year. The question is, would it be a good idea to max out
our contributions to employer 401k plans and try and defer any capital gains this year in order to
keep our AGI under 100k? ]]

If you have run the numbers and find that the Roth conversion is best for you, then this would be the way to try and do it. People will make the conversion for a number of different reasons. If you feel that your numbers and reasons are good, then get after it.

TMF Taxes
Roy