<prompt> Human: Hey PF,Im wondering because doesnt everyone expect to be in a higher tax bracket in the future due to hopefully making more money?  <response>: Im wondering because doesnt everyone expect to be in a higher tax bracket in the future due to hopefully making more money?Not when youre retired. Youre putting this money away for when you want to retire and not want to work anymore. At that point in time, all of your income will come from retirement investments. Say you make 100kyear now, put away 20k in retirement savings pretax, pay 30k of taxes, and live on the remaining 50k. Then in retirement you only need to take out enough of the retirement accounts to cover that same 50k of expenses. So your income during such a year may be only 65k of which 15k goes to taxes, the rest is for living costs. Also, if you put money in a traditional account while working, youll pay less taxes in your top bracket. When you take money out of a traditional account, the income will start filling up your brackets from the bottom upwards. 