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All the articles against the backdoor Roth reference Peter Thiel’s Roth. That is a very, very rare situation and he purchased PayPal stock for nothing using his Roth because it was a startup. PayPal could have taken a different turn and failed.

Yes there’s a tax benefit to backdoor roth but the max contribution is $6000 a year and most people are going to get index fund rate of returns and not Peter Thiel’s home run.

And Thiel did not get around the max contribution rate.

If you want a system that's really fair and would make all our lives a lot simpler, how about you don't pay _any_ taxes _until_ you're a millionaire? And after you're a millionaire you just pay a flat capital gains tax of X? Capital gains info could be collected at obvious checkpoints: brokerages, title offices, auction houses, etc. with minimal hassle to taxpayers.

All of these cutouts and exemptions (Roth, HSA, 401k, green rebates, etc.) hide the true nature of the tax system: preventing talented middle class people from building self-sustaining wealth while handing out scads of welfare to the already wealthy in the form of incentives and credits.

If they're going after the ROTH with articles like this, it's probably because middle class people managed to actually build some wealth with it...