If you aren't contributing the max to your 401k and IRA I would do that before considering Roth contributions, unless you really believe tax rates will explode such that your overall rate in retirement is higher than your marginal rate today. If that is the case you should also consider the risk that the law will be changed to tax Roth on withdrawal of capital gains, which I believe has been floated in the past.
And the risk that the tax laws on 401k will change too. Also, I missed that's in the self employed section so I don't know much about that. But if you have and can afford to max out a 401k, you probably can't get a deductible tira so it's really a question of taxable account vs Roth.
How would 401k laws change, you are already taxed when you withdraw from a 401k normally? The risk with Roth laws changing is you get double-taxed because the government needs money, with a 401k you have gotten the benefit the moment you contribute money to it, after that all they can do is literally confiscate money from it, or change it to a regular taxable account, but you've still already come out ahead of contributing to a Roth in either case.
If we end up with wealth taxes you are still more screwed by contributing to a Roth instead of a 401k, because at least with the 401k you avoided paying taxes in the past.
Depends on whether the tax is the same on Roth and Traditional accounts (Why are you comparing 401k and Roth? They are completely orthogonal concepts.). If there is a tax, deductions for past taxes paid on Roth accounts are likely.
> Why are you comparing 401k and Roth? They are completely orthogonal concepts.
Because the entire thesis of this thread is that it is better to contribute to a 401k and other pretax accounts before contributing to a Roth under nearly all circumstances(other than at the beginning of your career) that don't involve massive tax raises in the future.
For taxation purposes, traditional tax-exempt IRAs are equivalent to 401(k)s, and Roth 401(k)s are equivalent to Roth IRAs. Whenever someone refers to contributing to one type of account or the other over another type of account, the ones that are equivalent are... equivalent(for taxation purposes).
