Traditional to Roth rollover?

Like the title says: I'm wondering if a traditional to Roth rollover is worthwhile, and so far all the calculators say no. But there's one question that could have a big impact: how much of the traditional is taxable? I have no idea so I put in 100%, the various calcs say not just no but HELL no, then for gits and shiggles I put in 75%. At 75% yes it's viable.

So here's my question: how does a person figure the taxable percentage of their IRA? Even the IRS is about as clear as mud on this, there's a lot of mumbo jumbo about 'blended dollars'.

all has to do with a) your age, and b) how much you'd have to transfer

as I understand it, you have to pay taxes on ALL of the traditional IRA monies that you swap over … a) you got a tax break putting it in and b) it's grown tax deferred

if not much money there … it's easy to pay the additional tax …

if you're young enough it's easy to absorb the "lose" for the time being so you can withdraw tax free

I swapped one of my traditional IRA's when Roth's were first available, there was a special provision then that allowed you to spread the tax burden over 3 yrs … so it was relatively painless

I'm now drawing tax free income +SS so my yr end tax burden should be fairly small

I have been doing a rollover each year for the past 3 years from my IRA to my Roth. With my income being at a low point; retired but not yet of Social Security age; I end up paying very little additional tax on the withdrawal. I see the advantages of a Roth to be so much better then a regular IRA that I intended to try to convert all of my IRA to a Roth over the next few years. The reason I don't do it all at once is that the amount in my IRA is near 300K and I would incur to big of a tax hit if I did it all in one year.

I currently live off of withdraws from my taxable investments. I plan on not withdrawing any of the IRA investments until I NEED to. Hopefully not for many years.

The only money in the traditional that is not taxable is if you made non deductable contributions to it. So if you did not do that then it is all taxable.

yeah, forgot about that