In Traditional IRA, the contributions you make towards the account are not taxed. Whatever capital gains & earnings you make on your IRA are also not taxed up until retirement, when you withdraw money from your account. For example, imagine you made $50,000 this year and contributed $5000 to a traditional IRA. You will be taxed on $50,000 - $5000 = $45,000. Furthermore, your $5000 contribution will grow tax-deferred for many years, until you retire and decide to withdraw it.

Any 'qualified distributions' you take from a Roth IRA will NOT be included in your taxable income, hence making you exempt from paying taxes. You won't have to pay taxes on the original principal you contributed nor any taxes on capital gains & earnings you have accumulated. In order for the distribution to be classified as 'qualified', it must be taken under 1 of the following circumstances:

- the Roth IRA investor must be 59 and 1/2 years or older at the time of the distribution
- the Roth IRA investor becomes disabled at the time of taking the distributions
- the Roth IRA investor dies and his/her beneficiary receives the assets contained in the plan
- the distributions taken from the Roth IRA will be used in the purchase or building of a new home for the Roth IRA holder or qualified family member. This is limited to $10,000 per person per lifetime. Qualified family members include:
--> the Roth IRA investor
--> the Roth IRA investor's spouse
--> children of the Roth IRA investor
--> grandchildren of the Roth IRA investor
--> parent or ancestor of the Roth IRA investor

The law states that if your adjusted gross income (AGI) is greater than $100,000, you cannot convert from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. This law applies to both singles, married filing joint & head of household filers. Note that if you are filing a married-filing-separate tax return, you are not eligible to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at all, no matter what your adjusted gross income is.