Retiring from the fire service often means hanging up your gear in your early fifties, well before most people start claiming Social Security. You might step out of the station at 52 with a decent pension, but realize you have a long road ahead before other income sources kick in. These are your gap years. It’s a period where your pension might be the only steady income, since you likely can’t (or won’t) get Social Security benefits yourself.
What Are the “Gap Years” (Ages 50–62)?
The “gap years” refer to the early retirement stretch most firefighters face, roughly from your 50s until about 62 (give or take a couple years). Why 62? Because that’s the earliest a typical American can claim Social Security. BUT, many firefighters don’t even get Social Security at all, and even if you qualify through other work or a spouse, those benefits won’t fully kick in until your mid-60s. So effectively, the gap years are the period after you retire from the fire service, but before any Social Security or RMDs or other big income sources enter the picture. It’s when you’re likely living on just your pension and maybe some savings.
For potentially a decade or more, you’re in this in-between zone. Your pension might cover only 50–70% of your old paycheck¹, and it often doesn’t have COLA increases to fully keep up with inflation. Meanwhile, you have this pot of pre-tax money in accounts like a 457(b) or rollover IRA just sitting there growing (which is great), but Uncle Sam is patiently waiting to tax it later.
And if you’ve got a spouse who will receive Social Security or if you plan to tap your deferred accounts later, you can bet your taxable income will jump down the road. The gap years are essentially a low-tax valley between two higher-tax mountains (your working years before, and your RMD/SS years after).
That low-tax valley is a potentially great place to do some Roth conversions. Rather than letting that low bracket go to waste, you can “fill it up” by converting some of your pre-tax savings to Roth each year.
Roth Conversions 101
Let’s back up for a second and make sure we’re clear on what a Roth conversion is. A Roth conversion means moving money from a tax-deferred retirement account (like a Traditional 457(b), 401(k), or Traditional IRA) into a Roth IRA. When you do that, you have to pay income tax on the amount you convert in that year, because that money has never been taxed before.
Why on earth would you volunteer to pay taxes sooner than you have to?
Because once the money is in the Roth IRA, all future growth is tax-free and withdrawals in retirement are tax-free. And Roth IRAs have no required minimum distributions in the owner’s lifetime. In other words, you’re pre-paying the taxes now (ideally at a lower rate) so that you never have to pay taxes on that money again (nor do your heirs, if you leave them the Roth).
The strategy only makes sense if you pay now at a lower tax rate than you’d pay later. Fortunately, that’s exactly the scenario many firefighters find themselves in during the gap years. No paycheck, just a modest pension, means you might be in, say, the 12% federal tax bracket now, whereas later on your RMDs (and maybe spouse’s Social Security) could push you into the 22% or 24% bracket.
Alright, now that we know what a Roth conversion is and why the gap years offer a prime time to do it, let’s talk strategy. How do you actually execute this in practice without getting burned?
Early Retirement Could Mean A Low-Tax Window
When you retire early from firefighting, your taxable income often drops off a cliff. One day you’re earning, for example, $80k; the next day you’re living on a $40k pension. That alone could drop you from, say, the 22% tax bracket down to the 12% bracket. This gap-year drop in income is exactly why Roth conversions make sense now. If you simply coast through your 50s without conversions, you might be leaving Uncle Sam a bigger bite later.
Many retirees experience a tax “U-shape” in retirement, with low taxes in early retirement, then higher taxes later when RMDs and other incomes hit. Our goal is to flatten that U-shape by filling the lower part (the early years) with some taxable conversions. It’s a classic “pay me now or pay me later” scenario, and now is cheaper.
Let’s highlight a few specifics.
- Today’s tax rates are historically low. Currently (as of mid-2020s), federal tax brackets are at some of the lowest levels we’ve seen in decades[^6]. Tax rates may stay low, but they could just as easily return to previous higher levels.
- Your pension alone probably keeps you in a modest bracket. If you’re pulling in ~$40k from a pension, after a standard deduction your taxable income might be under $20k, which is squarely in the 10% bracket, maybe low 12%. You have tens of thousands of dollars of headroom below the higher brackets.
For example, as of 2025 the top of the 12% bracket for a married couple filing jointly is about $96,950 of taxable income (exact thresholds change over time, so always check current IRS tables). You could convert, say, $40k a year and still stay in a low bracket.
- Delaying Social Security = more conversion room. Firefighters often don’t get Social Security themselves, but let’s say your spouse will have a benefit. If that spouse is planning to delay claiming until 67 or 70 to get a bigger benefit (a common strategy, since SS grows ~8% per year when delayed), that also leaves your joint income lower in the meantime, which in turn leaves more room for Roth conversions.
- Avoiding future Medicare surcharges. Big income in your 70s can also trigger Medicare IRMAA surcharges, which can equate to basically higher premiums for Medicare if your income is above certain thresholds. By converting in your 50s and 60s, you reduce the size of your traditional accounts and thus your future RMDs (which means lower income in your 70s). That can help you stay under those Medicare surcharge thresholds later.
- Capitalizing on market dips. Another subtle advantage: if the market takes a nosedive (say we hit a recession and your 457 plan balance drops temporarily), doing a conversion during that dip can be extra beneficial. You’re converting assets while their values are down, meaning you pay tax on, say, a $50k value that might bounce back to $60k in a year. All that rebound then happens tax-free in the Roth. Of course, we can’t predict market swings, but if a bad year hits early in your retirement, a silver lining is it could be a great time for a larger conversion.
Lump-Sum vs. Phased Conversions
Once you decide to convert, a big question is how much and how often. Broadly, you have two approaches: do a lump-sum conversion (convert a huge chunk or even your whole account in one go), or do phased conversions (spread the transfers out year by year during your gap years).
In many cases, phased conversions will be the smarter, safer play, but let’s break it down:
Lump-Sum Conversion
This means converting a large amount all at once, which spikes your income in one year. For example, rolling your entire $500k 457 plan into a Roth in a single year. The pro is that you get it over with – you rip the Band-Aid off. All that money is in the Roth ASAP, so all growth from here on is tax-free, and you’ve eliminated future RMDs in one fell swoop. If you expect tax rates to skyrocket next year or some special circumstance (maybe you have a huge loss to offset it, etc.), a lump-sum can lock in today’s rates for all that money.
But the cons are big: you’d get hit with a massive tax bill in that one year, potentially pushing yourself into very high tax brackets unnecessarily. A lump conversion could shove you into the 32% or 35% federal bracket (not to mention higher state taxes, if applicable). You could also trigger things like IRMAA surcharges two years later (if you’re near Medicare age) or even temporarily make more of a spouse’s Social Security taxable.
Phased Conversions
This is the more common approach; convert in smaller pieces over multiple years, filling up those low tax brackets each year. For example, you might convert $30k this year, $30k next year, and so on. The pro here is fine-tuned control. You can stay in your comfort-zone bracket (say 12% or 22%) every year and avoid any one year of painful taxes. You’ll also better avoid nasty surprises like IRMAA or losing certain deductions/credits, because you’re not overshooting income thresholds.
The con is it requires patience and annual planning, and you’ll have to revisit the strategy each year, do some math on how much room you have left in your bracket, and execute consistently. There’s also a risk that tax laws change later (rates go up, or rules change), making future conversions more expensive, which is an argument some make for doing conversions sooner than later. But generally, phased conversions often give you the best balance of tax efficiency and flexibility.
The Payoff: Tax Diversification and Future Flexibility
By the end of your gap years, if you execute these Roth conversions, you’ll have something extremely valuable: tax diversification. This means having multiple “buckets” of money taxed in different ways, some always tax-free (Roth), some tax-deferred (traditional), maybe some taxable investments too. That diversification is powerful in retirement. It gives you options.
If you need a large sum for a new truck or a big vacation, you can pull from your Roth pot and not worry about a tax spike. If tax rates change or you have a low-income year, you can strategically decide which account to draw from to minimize taxes. You’re not at the mercy of RMDs forcing money out on Uncle Sam’s schedule; you control your income stream much more.
Moreover, converting in the gap years lightens the load of RMDs on your later years. Some retirees find themselves almost trapped by huge RMDs in their 70s. They don’t need the money, but they have to take it and pay taxes, and it can even push them into higher Medicare premiums.
Reducing RMDs also potentially means less of your spouse’s Social Security will be taxed and maybe avoiding those Medicare IRMAA surcharges we discussed.
In Conclusion
The years between retirement and age 62 are one of the few chances you get to reshape your long-term tax picture. With your income temporarily lower, the IRS takes a smaller cut — and that’s exactly when it makes sense to move some of your money into tax-free territory. A well-timed Roth conversion strategy during this window can reduce your future RMDs, give you more flexibility later, and help keep taxes and Medicare premiums in check when they matter most.
If you’re approaching or already in the gap years, this is the time to run the numbers. Don’t wait until the tax brackets shift or RMDs kick in, start now while the window’s open and the tax meter is on your side.
Appendix
- Protection Red – Retirement Spending Guardrails: How Firefighters Can Keep Income Steady When Markets Bounce Around – https://protectionred.com/retirement-spending-guardrails-how-firefighters-can-keep-income-steady-when-markets-bounce-around/
