[skellington]

No it doesn't. Not for people who earn tech salaries which is what this article is pointed at. You're always going to max out pre-tax 401k first, then backdoor 401k post-tax after if you have enough spare income.

Moving up a bracket doesn't change all the previous brackets, it just affects money past that level. It's not like a hard line that you cross and it changes the whole picture.

If you think otherwise, give us a scenario where is matters.

[sokoloff]

Scenario 1: If you believe that your marginal tax rate after retirement will be higher than your marginal tax rate now, you would prefer to max out your Roth than you pre-tax now. Many people in tech will be taxed at the top income rate now and at the top income rate in retirement as well; it seems likely that tax rates will have to rise in the future as we're obviously not running a sustainable balance of federal inflows and outflows now.

Scenario 2: If you want to funnel as much money as possible into your employer's plan, you might want to use a Roth vehicle to do that. (Your pre-payment of taxes on it means that $100 in a Roth is worth more than $100 in a pre-tax vehicle.) Your 401k plan might not support mega backdoor 401k contributions (many plans don't allow after-tax contributions [distinct from Roth]) and you might have other IRAs that would drag in the pro-rata rule for backdoor IRA contributions.

[c0pium]

If you’re at the limit for the middle capital gains bracket because of one-time gains and you can afford to wait, you should definitely defer liquidating assets to the following tax year.

[LVB]

Yeah this is important for planning, and it becomes even more complicated when you're trying to optimize with AMT involved, reclaiming credits, etc. These things require multi-year planning, and the expected tax bracket is a significant factor.

[rrdharan]

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=247046