A Strategy for Taking Advantage of the Market Meltdown

The market’s recent plunge has been brutal.

But for people with traditional individual retirement accounts, the silver lining is that today’s lower account balances can be used to reduce income-tax bills in retirement.

The key is a strategy known as the Roth conversion. This allows account owners to transfer some or all of the money in a tax-deferred IRA to a Roth IRA, a retirement account into which you contribute after-tax dollars and get tax-free withdrawals.