For quite a few years my wife and I both contributed to our Roth IRAs. About 5 years ago we started not qualifying for the Roth because our income was too high. We're right on the edge of not being able to contribute to a Roth every year so I haven't stopped contributing to the Roths, I just been re-characterizing the contributions by October 15th every year to a Traditional IRA. My question is, I pay the taxes on the income that goes into the Roth but when I have to re-characterize into a Traditional IRA, I don't get any tax break and I can't pull the money out penalty free until 59.5 years old. Is this right, or am I missing something? Seems I'm getting the short end of the stick. Thanks in advance.