Your friend Jomaine says a Traditional IRA or 401(k) has the best tax advantages because you don’t pay any taxes now, and you can wait until you retire to pay taxes. Why might he be right?

The logic behind tax free contributions is to maximize the amount of money you can invest, so that the returns are also higher. But besides this, you might also consider that tax deductions are higher when you are older than 65, so yo might actually pay a little less taxes.

Considering normal activities, younger people also tend to have different expenses than older people. When you are 35 to 50, you generally have a family to support and your expenses are high, so there is little room for extra savings. But when you are retired, your expenses change. Your children are generally adults by then, and you only take care of yourself and your spouse (if you have one). You will probably be able to deal with taxes better then.