Terms of use, in plain language.

1. Agreement

By using The Roth Ladder at therothladder.com (the “Site”) you agree to these terms. If you do not agree with them, please do not use the Site. These terms apply to every page and to the calculator itself.

2. What the Site provides

The Site is a free educational tool that models the mechanics of a Roth conversion ladder under published statutory rules for a stated tax year. It performs arithmetic on figures you supply and presents the result alongside the formulas used. That is the entire service. There is no account, no subscription, no fee, and no support commitment.

3. Not professional advice

Nothing on the Site is tax advice, legal advice, accounting advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to convert any amount. Using the Site creates no client, fiduciary, or professional relationship of any kind. No one here has reviewed your tax return, your account statements, your state's rules, or your circumstances. Thedisclaimer lists what the model deliberately omits — state income tax, the 0% long-term capital gains interaction, and Medicare IRMAA among them — and forms part of these terms. Consult a CPA or a fee-only financial planner before acting.

4. Accuracy, and your responsibility to verify

Figures reflect published rules for the stated tax year to the best of my understanding at the time of writing. Tax law changes, guidance is revised, and software contains defects. Output may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong. You are responsible for verifying anything you rely on against primary sources or a qualified professional. A Roth conversion is irreversible, so this responsibility is not a formality.

5. Permitted use

You may use the Site freely for personal or professional planning purposes. You may not:

• Interfere with the Site's operation, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to any system related to it.
• Scrape, mirror, or redistribute the Site's content in bulk so as to present it as your own.
• Remove or obscure the disclaimers when reproducing output — if you share a result with a client or a forum, the caveats travel with the numbers.
• Represent output from the Site as professional advice, or as reviewed or endorsed by me.
• Use the Site in any way that breaks applicable law.

Sharing a scenario link, quoting a figure with attribution, or citing a formula from the methodology page are all fine and encouraged.

6. Intellectual property

The Site's text, design, and code are owned by its operator, except where noted. Statutory figures — tax brackets, poverty guidelines, applicable-percentage bands — are government facts and belong to nobody. Third-party open-source components remain under their own licenses.

7. Your data and privacy

The calculations execute in your browser and your financial inputs are not transmitted to our servers. Saved scenarios and display theme preferences reside in your browser's local storage. When you generate and share scenario URLs, the parameters are serialized into the URL fragment. The Site integrates third-party services, including Google Analytics for traffic measurement and Google AdSense for display advertising. Theprivacy policy provides full details on data handling, cookie usage, and opt-out options and is incorporated into these terms.

8. Availability

The Site is provided on an as-available basis. It may be changed, interrupted, or discontinued at any time without notice, and features described as planned may never ship. Nothing here is a commitment to keep any page, URL, or calculation available.

9. No warranty

The Site and everything it produces are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied. To the fullest extent permitted by law I disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. I do not warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that its calculations are correct or complete.

10. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither the operator of the Site nor any contributor is liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, or for any lost profits, lost tax savings, additional tax, penalties, interest, forfeited premium tax credits, or other loss arising from your use of — or inability to use — the Site, even if advised of the possibility. Because the Site is provided free of charge, total aggregate liability for all claims is limited to zero dollars (US$0).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions of warranty or limitations of liability, so parts of sections 9 and 10 may not apply to you. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

11. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the operator of the Site from claims arising out of your misuse of the Site or your breach of these terms — including, for advisers and preparers, claims arising from output you passed to a client without independent verification.

12. Third-party links and advertisements

Pages on the Site may include links to external websites (such as IRS publications and statutory sources) and display third-party advertisements served by ad networks (such as Google AdSense). We do not control, endorse, or assume responsibility for external websites, third-party content, or advertised products and services. Your interactions with third-party sites or advertisers are solely between you and the respective third party.

13. Changes to these terms

These terms may be updated as the Site changes. The revision date at the top of this page marks the current version, and continuing to use the Site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

14. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of the state in which the Site's operator resides, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Nothing in the Site is directed at any particular jurisdiction, and it models United States federal tax rules only.

15. Miscellaneous

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. Together with theprivacy policy and thedisclaimer, these terms are the entire agreement between you and me regarding the Site.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms can go toadmin@therothladder.com, or through thecontact page.