TIPRA Canoe and IRA Too

In May, Pres Bush signed into law the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act (TIPRA). TIPRA provided for the extension of the lower capital gain and dividend taxation from 2003, which was scheduled to expire after 2008, and did some other things like modifying the dreaded alternative minimum tax calculation. Also in this new law is a provision making Roth IRA programs more attractive than they have been previously. Congress included in TIPRA a provision that allows anyone (regardless of income) to convert his or her regular IRA or IRAs into a Roth IRA, and projected that would bring in almost $7.5 billion in revenue as scored by the Joint Committee on Taxation of the US Congress. The new law does not remove the cap on income for the annual Roth IRA contribution limit. It just eliminates the cap on the conversion of a regular IRA into a Roth IRA.