Anti Roth Diatribe from Pension Rights Advocate
The following article is from a director of the Pension Rights Center, an organization with a stated goal of empowering retirees to have some control over their reducing Pension Benefits. However, it seems the author is more concerned about the budget deficit, than the above stated goal. It makes for some interesting reading, along with links to prior anti Roth articles dating back to 1998:
http://www.pensionrights.org/news/perspectives/2009/04/time-to-fix-a-fis…
Permalink Submitted by Daniel Liddle on Sat, 2009-05-09 14:51
The fat pigs in Washington should spend within their means and let us poor folks try to finance our retirements!!
Permalink Submitted by Chuck Snyder on Sat, 2009-05-09 21:45
Alan does not say that he disagrees with Daniel Halperin’s aversion to the Roth IRA, but as he refers to it as a diatribe, I assume that to be the case. I however am in Mr. Halperins corner. Having retired in 98, I had little opportunity to contribute to a Roth but I have since converted some assets. Nonetheless, I always thought that enacting such a giveaway was lacking in foresight and idiotic tax policy.
In my opinion, IRA’s as they were originally conceived, were the cat’s meow. The participants deferred gratification and the government piggybacked right along with them, giving up current taxes for greater tax income in the future. And, our government with all of its unfunded liabilities is certainly going to be in dire need of revenue in the future.
Now, due to recent legislation there seems to be a rush to Roth conversions. The reasoning behind that legislation seemingly is to enhance tax revenue in the present; again, our elected representatives thumbed their noses at the future. It seems reasonable to conclude that those doing conversions are generally more well-to-do and would be better able to pay the taxes that they will avoid in retirement. One cannot know the monetary repercussion of this; I guesstimate, taking into consideration compounding and inflation, that in the here and now the IRS will collect less than one-half the taxes that they otherwise would have collected later.
Chuck Snyder