As a consequence of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, many individuals will have a new set of decisions to make about saving for retirement. The Act introduced in 1998 a new type of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) called the Roth IRA, named after the Senator who proposed the concept.Unlike a traditional IRA, with a Roth you receive no tax deduction when you contribute. However, your contribution still accumulates tax free and, more importantly, distributions are received free of income tax. Another provision of the Act is to allow individuals with adjusted gross income (AGI) of less than $100,000 to convert their existing IRA to a Roth IRA. If such a conversion was made in 1998, one may spread the resulting tax liability over four years. We have provided the following calculator to help you accomplish the following:

• Determine whether or not you (and your spouse) are eligible to contribute to the three types of IRAs (non-deductible, deductible, and Roth)
  
  
• Calculate the future after-tax value in each account assuming your maximum allowable contribution to each.
  
  
• If eligible to convert your existing IRA to the new Roth IRA, determine which alternative (convert or not convert) yields the greater after-tax value at retirement.