SunGard Updates Roth Capabilities on WealthStation

The new functionality can help financial advisers guide their clients in deciding whether to convert their traditional individual retirement accounts (IRA) to Roth IRAs.

Currently, taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income of less than $100,000 can convert their traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, but the rules going into effect January 1 eliminate that income limit.
 
SunGard said WealthStation provides calculators to give advisers side-by-side comparisons of the impact of immediate taxation upon conversion versus the tax-free accumulation and withdrawals available within a Roth IRA. According to the firm, WealthStation also:

• Provides two methods for calculating the taxes resulting from an IRA conversion: current tax brackets and user-defined average tax rates;
• illustrates three IRA alternatives and three time periods to examine different scenarios that take into account the time of conversion, when distributions are to begin, and annual income generated by each alternative;
• illustrates the cross-over point (i.e. which option produces the largest dollar amount) between keeping a traditional IRA and converting to the Roth IRA based on current and future tax brackets.