There are differing opinions on this. Here is mine:
If you are in a low tax bracket now and see your expenses higher later on OR
you are in a low tax bracket now and see overall tax rates going higher
then the Roth is the way to go. Total contributions to IRAs (Roth, traditional, or nondeductible) cannot exceed $5000 for this year per person. So you could put $1 in your traditional and $4999 in your Roth(s), or whatever combination you want.
Personally I see tax rates going in higher in the future so I prefer to fund a Roth even though my tax bracket is currently 25%. We also fund some work plans (i.e. 401k) which are pretax dollars so that will give us some flexibility when we start to make withdrawals. For instance we could withdraw just enough from the pretax plans to keep us in a low tax bracket and then fund the remainder of our expenses with Roth withdrawals.
Besides tax flexibility, the other benefit to the Roths is something you alluded to. Since the contributions are the same for the Roth and the traditional, but the Roth is funded with after tax dollars, you are essentially putting more in the Roth if you max out. A Roth account with balance of $5000 is "worth" more than a traditional IRA with the same balance. Pulling $5000 out of the tIRA only gives you $4000 of spendable money, in other words.
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