Roth IRA conversion at age 81?

At 81 should I transfer all my IRAs to Roth IRA? Would that be beneficial?

Terry Says:  I can’t think of any reason to switch to a Roth at this age.  First, you’ve already started taking minimum required distributions.  So over the past 9 years, you’ve taken a bite out of the money in the account.  Are you saying you want to avoid taking MRDs on the rest of the money?    To do that,, via a Roth conversion, you would have to pay income taxes on ALL the money in the IRA, with money held outside the account, using up a lot of your free cash.

In general, I’d say that you are far better off taking the money out of the IRAs on your current MRD schedule — making sure that you have named a beneficiary in case you die before withdrawals are finished.  And be sure to tell that beneficiary to roll the balance of the IRA into a new IRA — so the balance can keep growing tax deferred until the (younger) beneficiary is one day required to take withdrawals.