Americans switched $64.8 billion of pretax IRAs to Roths that year, with 79 percent of the assets belonging to people with incomes of $100,000 or more, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
If the funds were taxed at the top federal rate of 35 percent at the time, that would have generated about $23 billion in receipts -- far more than the budget office had anticipated. But the windfall could also cost future generations a bundle later in the form of lost tax receipts.
“There is a risk that a future Congress is going to wonder where its revenue has gone,” said Andrew Oringer, a partner at the law firm Dechert who counsels clients on tax and fiduciary matters tied to employee-benefit plans. “The answer is going to be that a prior Congress gave it away.”
This story provided by Bloomberg News.