<prompt> Human: My income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA, therefore I also am ineligible for the deduction to a traditional IRA. I think and am in the process of confirming that I have 18K in an old Traditional IRA. Assuming that is the case, I dont want to backdoor because of the pro rata tax or whatever its called The FAQ almost answers this but says It is almost never a good idea to make a non-deductible contribution to a traditional IRA, as doing so would mean that your earnings would be taxed. But since backdoor Roth is out, the alternative is an investment account, which will also be taxed. tl;dr - Does it make sense to put money in a Traditional IRA if the only alternative is an investment account?  <response>: Easiest way to deal with this is to try and clean out your traditional IRA. E.g. what I did was roll the traditional IRA into my 401k at work.Then you have a clean traditional IRA to make the backdoor roth work without b.s. tax issues 