401k allocation question

Yeah, I’m in the 24% as well.

I would do 401k until employer match in traditional, then max out Roth IRA. You get the best of both.

Consider your likely tax rates when you withdraw the money in retirement. You don't want to pay 24% + state now to avoid paying 12% then. So do some math and estimate your assets and figure out how much you need to allocate to pre-tax to fill out the lower tax brackets in retirement, then work on the Roth.

Roth is not always better.

I just fricked around and found a job after retiring four years ago. I will be using traditional 401K to lower my tax burden and Obamacare payments for the rest of this year, then doing as much Roth as I can for the next two years, then possibly deferring as much as I can for the next two years if I can avoid IIRMA by doing that, hoping I'll have good chances to do some trad IRA to Roth Conversions later, though I will do some along the way.

So you see it's really simple.....

So you see it's really simple.....
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Not so fast.

I have been in a higher bracket than 12% every year since I "retired" .

You are assuming you know what the tax brackets will be many years into the future. I expect tax brackets to be less favorable in the future.

Also, you are discounting the power of compounded yields, which can be significant over many years of tax free growth in a Roth.

I agree with the other poster and would fund a Roth after taking any company match.

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Also, you are discounting the power of compounded yields, which can be significant over many years of tax free growth in a Roth.

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That is the same for both Roth and Traditional. With traditional, you get the effects of compounding on both the amount you contribute to Roth and the amount of taxes you would have paid on that contribution if you choose to put all of it in traditional.

The future rates are just an estimate, but they will be what they are today for the foreseeable future. In the past, most tax increase proposals have sought to keep the bottom brackets nearly the same, but much like investing, past performance does not guarantee future results....

The Roth has other advantages, such as no RMD, and also will not push you into higher tax brackets if you take a large withdrawal to pay off your house or something, but in an awful lot of situations, people could be paying higher taxes now to avoid lower taxes later.

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You are assuming you know what the tax brackets will be many years into the future.

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It's not many years into the future for me.

I put all my contributions into 401k as ROTH, the match (4%) is all pre-tax bucket. 24% tax bracket, just feel like this is still a low bracket for income level and would rather have the least amount of RMD in the future. Also max a Traditional IRA which I convert to ROTH each year.

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Hedge tax risk by having assets in pre-tax, Roth and after-tax assets.

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I agree with your advice to hedge, however, I would also advise everyone to immediately convert all after tax asset contribution amounts to Roth. Contact your broker to do that asap if you currently have any after tax contributions that were not already converted to Roth. That's a free conversion in a 401K. After tax contribution earnings are taxable while Roth earnings are not taxable.