Roth IRAs became available for tax year 1998. Congress created them in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, signed by President Bill Clinton on August 5, 1997. The accounts are named for Senator William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware. Their basic design is still the same: regular contributions are not deductible, while qualified withdrawals are tax-free.

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Quick Facts

  • check_circleCreated: Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, P.L. 105-34, §302; signed August 5, 1997.
  • check_circleFirst tax year: 1998. The law took effect for tax years beginning after December 31, 1997.
  • check_circleNamesake: Senator William V. Roth Jr. (Delaware), then chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
  • check_circleTax-code home: IRC §408A, alongside the traditional IRA provisions in §408.
  • check_circleContribution limit: $2,000 in 1998; $7,500 in 2026, plus a $1,100 age-50 catch-up for an $8,600 total. Eligibility and shared IRA-limit rules still apply.

What Was Different About the Roth IRA?

A Roth IRA offered a different timing of the tax benefit: no deduction for regular contributions, but no federal income tax on qualified withdrawals. Qualified withdrawals require the Roth IRA five-tax-year period plus age 59½, death, disability or a qualifying first-home distribution, subject to its $10,000 lifetime limit.

Roth IRA owners also have no lifetime required minimum distributions under IRC §408A(c)(4). Beneficiaries have separate distribution rules. These features distinguish the account from a traditional IRA; they do not mean that Roth treatment is better for every taxpayer.

Selected Roth Legislation and Guidance Milestones

  • 1998: Roth IRAs become available under the 1997 act, initially with a $2,000 regular annual IRA limit. Conversions originally had a $100,000 modified-AGI ceiling and filing-status restrictions.
  • 2001: EGTRRA §601 schedules increases in the basic IRA limit to $5,000 by 2008, followed by inflation adjustments. It also introduces age-50 IRA catch-up contributions.
  • 2006: Designated Roth contributions become available in participating 401(k) and 403(b) plans. The authority is EGTRRA 2001 §617, not the Pension Protection Act of 2006.
  • 2010: The conversion income and filing-status restrictions are removed. TIPRA §512 was enacted May 17, 2006, despite the law's title ending in “2005”; the change applies to tax years beginning after December 31, 2009. It did not remove the income limits on regular Roth IRA contributions.
  • 2018: Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted in December 2017, Roth conversions made in 2018 or later cannot be recharacterized back to traditional. Eligible regular IRA contributions can still be recharacterized under their separate rules.
  • 2019: The SECURE Act introduces a 10-year distribution rule for many inherited IRAs, generally for deaths after 2019, with exceptions for certain beneficiaries. The rule also reaches inherited Roth IRAs.
  • 2022 law, 2024 start: SECURE 2.0 §325 eliminates owner lifetime RMDs from designated Roth workplace accounts beginning in 2024. Roth IRA owners already had that exemption.
  • 2024: SECURE 2.0 §126's 529-to-Roth IRA rollover provision becomes effective, not in 2023. It has a $35,000 lifetime ceiling, a 15-year account requirement, annual IRA/compensation limits, a five-year contribution-and-earnings lookback and other conditions.
  • 2024: TD 10001 finalizes inherited-account regulations, generally applicable beginning in 2025. A designated beneficiary who is not an eligible designated beneficiary and inherits directly from a Roth IRA owner generally need not take annual RMDs in years 1–9, but must empty the account by December 31 of the tenth year after the owner’s death.
  • 2025: TD 10033, issued September 16, finalizes catch-up regulations. The mandatory Roth catch-up statute operates in 2026 after Notice 2023-62's 2024–2025 transition relief; the regulations generally apply beginning in 2027, with special applicability provisions. For 2026, the wage test is more than $150,000 of prior-2025 Social Security wages from the sponsoring employer, not household income. See Roth 401(k) rules.

Indexing correction: EGTRRA §601 established the basic IRA limit's inflation adjustment. SECURE 2.0 §108 indexed the IRA catch-up beginning in 2024; the indexed catch-up is $1,100 for 2026. SECURE 2.0 §107 concerns RMD ages, while §109 provides the higher catch-up for ages 60–63 in eligible workplace plans. Those are different provisions.

Senator William Roth (1921–2003)

William V. Roth Jr. represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1971 to 2001 and chaired the Senate Finance Committee from 1995 to 2001. The official congressional biography records those service dates. The Roth IRA bears his name; its legal authority is the law enacted by Congress, not an individual senator's proposal alone.

Sources: Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, §302; Notice 2006-44, section II; IRS IRA FAQs, recharacterization; SECURE 2.0, Division T, §§108, 126 and 325; Notice 2025-67, actual 2026 limits; Publication 590-B (2025), qualified Roth distributions and beneficiaries. The timeline separates enactment, first operation and regulatory applicability; it is not a complete legislative history.