<prompt> Human: Hi guys,Over dinner, I was discussing about retirements and choosing between traditional or Roth IRA. I was suggested the following, If you are unsure about whether you should choose Roth or Traditional IRA, think of it this way. If you retire poor, youll benefit with the Traditional IRA in that there are not a lot of taxes due as you are in the lower tax brackets. However, if you retire rich and you have external accounts helping with your retirement, then paying taxes on your IRA is not a major stress or concern.We were discussing in general and there are a lot of other things I left out such as paying off all student and credit card debt, saving for an emergency of 6 months savings, and maxing out the employers 401k contributions. Please let me know if this kind of perspective is appropriate or if there is another guidelinerulestandard that I should be in the mindset prior to choosing to contribute to either a Traditional or Roth IRA.Thanks in advance!  <response>: paying taxes on your IRA is not a major stress or concern.This is silly. Even rich people like to optimize their strategy to reduce how much tax they pay.Most people will make this decision based on this: at what time now or later will it be less expensive for me to pay the taxes?I agree with the earlier concept in general -- if you will be having a low income lifestyle in retirement and thus tax rate is low, not paying a higher tax rate now during working years makes sense, so that suggests utilizing traditional would be more effective than Roth. 