Kevin,
Combining the rollover vrs a new IRA account has no direct tax effect, just an indirect one per final paragraph below.

What you may recall is the implication regarding protection of the IRA in bankruptcy. If you are in a state that does not provide broad creditor protection for IRAs, or could move out of that state later, the federal BK Act provides unlimited dollar protection on rollovers from employer plans. Conversely, if the rollover is made into an existing IRA that accepted regular IRA contributions, the limit is 1,000,000 plus an inflation adjustment, and commingly the rollover with contributary accounts could trigger the 1mm limit instead of no limit on the rollover. If you are sure that the 1mm would never be exceeded, then it does not matter if you combine them.

A secondary benefit of keeping them separate is that some employer plans that accept IRA rollovers only accept them from rollover accounts because they think that rollover accounts insulate them from receiving after tax contributions, which they are not allowed to accept. Again, if there will never be a desire to roll funds back to an employer plan, such as at final retirement, this also will not be a factor.

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