Retirement · Tax planning
Your low-tax gap years, mapped year by year.
Retire before Social Security and RMDs kick in and you land in a tax valley — a stretch of unusually low-bracket years. It’s often the lowest-bracket window you’ll get to move money from a traditional IRA into a Roth. GlidePath maps that valley for your plan and shows the largest Roth conversion that fits under the 12% and 22% bracket tops each year — on your own machine, no account, no advisor portal.
This math usually lives in an advisor’s spreadsheet — or a planning suite that wants your accounts.
“Convert to the top of the 12% bracket” is common advice. Doing it correctly, for your actual income, year by year, is the hard part — and the tools that do it are usually a paid advisor or a subscription you feed your balances into.
GlidePath is a desktop-license app that does the same year-by-year solve on your own computer, from the retirement plan you already built. It reads your spending, pensions, and Social Security timing, finds the valley, and works out the conversion room — the real number, not a rule of thumb. Nothing is uploaded; the analysis is yours to keep alongside the plan.
What it works out — and where it draws the line.
The window, and the bracket room in it
It finds the valley — from the year you’re both retired to the year before your first RMD (the required withdrawals that start at 73 or 75 under SECURE 2.0; the earlier-hitting spouse’s RMDs close the window). For each year it shows the largest conversion that fits under the 12% and 22% bracket tops, and totals the headroom across the whole stretch — all in today’s dollars.
Torpedo-aware, not a rule of thumb
Each dollar you convert can pull more of your Social Security into taxability — the “tax torpedo” — so the real room is less than “bracket top minus income.” GlidePath solves for the actual number, and stacks the 65+ senior deductions (the permanent age-65 addition and the 2025–2028 bonus), folding the bonus’s phase-out into the math since converting more income erodes it.
The cliffs a big conversion can hit
Past the brackets, it flags the IRMAA Medicare surcharge (a conversion at 63+ feeds the premium two years later) and the 3.8% NIIT as separate ceilings, not bracket room. And it handles the survivor’s switch: after one spouse dies, the other files single, with harsher brackets and thresholds — the math changes with them.
It sizes the opportunity — it doesn’t file the conversion.
A conversion plan is a moving target, and GlidePath is honest about what it does and doesn’t carry.
It holds today’s federal tax law constant across the projection, so it can’t predict what Congress changes, and it models the federal brackets and cliffs — not your state’s income tax on a conversion, which can be a real factor. The numbers are only as good as the retirement inputs they read, and it shows the room rather than executing anything: it doesn’t move money or file a Form 8606. The goal is a clear, year-by-year picture you can take to your CPA — who confirms the amount and the timing for your situation. It calculates and organizes; a professional confirms and files.
Map your gap years without handing over your accounts.
$129 desktop license for Personal — the Tax Valley is part of the core retirement planner. Your plan stays in a plain file on your own computer.
GlidePath calculates and organizes the numbers — it isn’t tax advice. Roth-conversion timing depends on your full situation and on tax law that can change; confirm the amount and timing with a CPA before you convert.
Tax gap years & Roth conversions
What are the tax gap years before RMDs?
The low-bracket stretch between when you retire and when Social Security and required minimum distributions fill your income back up. GlidePath maps that window for your plan — from both-retired to the year before your first RMD, with the earlier spouse's RMDs closing it.
How much can I convert to a Roth in the gap years?
GlidePath shows the largest conversion that fits under the 12% and 22% bracket tops each year and totals the headroom across the window, accounting for the Social Security tax torpedo (each converted dollar can pull more of your benefit into taxability) and the 65+ senior deductions.
Does it account for IRMAA and the NIIT cliffs?
Yes. It flags the IRMAA Medicare surcharge and the 3.8% NIIT as separate ceilings, not bracket room, and it handles the survivor's switch to single filing. It estimates the room — it isn't tax advice; confirm the amount and timing with a CPA before you convert.