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Pre-tax 401(k) or after-tax...thoughts?
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You don’t. And tax law might change between now and then anyway.
Sometimes you have to make decisions about what to do now based on what you think things will be like in the future, and you don’t know what the future is going to hold. That’s how life works.
HSA is pretax.
Just do 50/50
Pro
Keep in mind this is retirement money so it’s your taxes without having a job.
With regard to your second question, yes
I chose ROTH even though I believe I’ll make less than today (adj for inflation) with withdraw given the historically conservative tax brackets
Look up 1980s rates and you’ll have a clear answer
Chief
You have to make some basic assumptions - e.g. tax brackets will be the same adjusted for inflation.
Beyond that you're making estimates of your costs (your home is likely paid off so mortgage = 0, healthcare costs based on existing costs + inflation, etc.)
You then set your "income" at exactly around your estimated expenses + spending money buffer.
You can then guess your tax bracket based on your estimated social security payout + what you're going to pull from your retirement accounts
So if I retire the year after I quit my job, my income would be zero so I can withdraw a traditional 401k with no taxes?
No, your withdrawal on a traditional is considered income and taxable
Pro
Generally you want to max out your 401k match first. Then max out your Roth IRA. Then max out the rest of your 401k.
Same concept from a tax perspective
Pro
When you are over a certain amount of income now, it makes more sense to do traditional than Roth. I forget the exact threshold. Also keep in mind that there’s lots of ways to get Roth style benefits - you can likely do in plan conversions, megabackdoor, IRA to Roth rollovers, etc. 529 accounts also give you roth style benefits. There’s less ways to save with pretax dollars - really just company 401k and HSA. I’d max both of those out with traditional before doing roth, but I’m also 11 years into my career.
If i was just starting out, Roth might make more sense. There’s also some benefits to Roth in that you can take some out for things like a home purchase with no penalties and no tax.