do you pay taxes twice on a backdoor roth ira 
traditional ira contributions are tax deferred until withdrawals are taken when you convert your ira to a roth ira you pay taxes on your contributions and capital gains when you withdraw from your roth there are no taxes because you ve already paid them 3 so you only pay taxes once using the backdoor roth ira strategy the bottom lineif you re thinking of using the backdoor roth ira strategy crunch the numbers and consider the tax implications especially if you are converting the entire balance of a traditional ira depending on how much money is in the account and what your income tax rate is the amount of tax you owe could be huge even given that the backdoor roth ira strategy can have advantages especially for high earners roth iras don t have rmds so you can hold them forever and pass them on to your heirs another advantage is that a backdoor roth contribution can mean significant tax savings over the decades because roth ira distributions unlike traditional ira distributions are not taxable 