Roth conversions
The hidden cost most Roth conversion calculators skip.
A Roth conversion usually gets framed as a tax-rate question: pay tax now, avoid tax later. That is useful, but incomplete.
The tax bill is not the whole cost
If you convert traditional IRA dollars to Roth, the taxable portion is added to income for the year. That creates a tax bill. But the dollars used to pay that bill could have remained invested somewhere else.
That lost growth is the opportunity cost. It does not disappear just because the tax was paid from a bank account instead of withheld from the conversion.
Why BucketSavers shows it
BucketSavers compares the future Roth value against the future after-tax traditional value plus the future value of tax dollars that would not have been spent if no conversion happened. That makes the comparison less flattering, but more honest.
Try it in the Roth conversion calculator and change the expected return or number of years. The tax payment’s future value can become a very real number.
The simple takeaway
A Roth conversion can still be a good move. But the analysis should compare all dollars after tax, including the dollars used to pay the conversion tax.