The Roth contribution band and the traditional deduction band are worked out in exactly the same way — a straight-line reduction inside the band, rounded up to the next $10, with a $200 floor. What differs is the width, and it is reversed between the two filing statuses.
1. For a single filer the contribution band is wider. $15,000 for the Roth against $10,000 for the deduction — so the deduction goes 1.5 times faster.
2. Filing jointly it is the other way round. $10,000 for the Roth against $20,000 for the deduction — now the deduction goes at half the speed.
3. And one pair is identical. The deduction band for “joint, only the spouse is covered” is $242,000 ~ $252,000 — not a dollar different from the joint Roth band.
Same rule, and the widths swap over
The width of a band is the speed of the reduction: the narrower it is, the more a given rise in income takes away. Put the widths side by side and which one disappears first is immediately visible.
For a single filer the deduction is the urgent one. The Roth contribution fades over $15,000 while the deduction is gone within $10,000 — for the same $1,000 of income the Roth loses $500 and the deduction $750 (at the $7,500 limit, our calculation).
Filing jointly, it reverses exactly. The Roth contribution is gone within $10,000, while the deduction band for a covered spouse is $20,000 — precisely twice as wide (our calculation). Here $1,000 costs the Roth $750 and the deduction $375.
In short: a single filer loses the deduction first and fast; a joint filer loses the contribution first and fast. Remember “the IRA income band” as one thing and you will have one of the two wrong.
The four deduction bands
The traditional deduction band is not set by filing status alone. Who is covered by a workplace retirement plan goes into it too.
In words, the four rows are:
- Single or head of household, you are covered — $81,000 ~ $91,000 ($10,000 wide)
- Married filing jointly, you are covered — $129,000 ~ $149,000 ($20,000 wide — the only one that is twice as wide)
- Married filing jointly, only your spouse is covered — $242,000 ~ $252,000 ($10,000 wide)
- Married filing separately, you are covered — $0 ~ $10,000 ($10,000 wide)
And if nobody is covered by a workplace plan, none of this table applies — the deduction is full at any income. The phase-out is a rule that attaches only to people who have a plan at work.
One pair that matches exactly
Take the third row above — $242,000 ~ $252,000 for “joint, only the spouse is covered” — and set it beside the joint Roth contribution band.
| What shrinks | 2026 band | Width |
|---|---|---|
| Roth IRA contribution (joint) | $242,000 ~ $252,000 | $10,000 |
| Traditional IRA deduction (joint, spouse covered only) | $242,000 ~ $252,000 | $10,000 |
Same bottom, same top, same width. So a couple in that position — you have no plan at work, your spouse does — loses the Roth contribution and the traditional deduction across the very same $10,000. Cross the top of $242,000 ~ $252,000 and both doors shut together.
It is one figure used in two places, and not a causal link — the news release publishes each separately and they happen to coincide. For the people it applies to, though, it really is a single threshold.
Contributing and deducting are different questions
This is where things go wrong most often. The traditional IRA income band decides whether you may deduct, not whether you may contribute.
Publication 590-A is plain about it — “Although your deduction for IRA contributions may be reduced or eliminated, contributions can be made to your IRA up to the general limit.” Even with the deduction at zero, you may still put in the full $7,500. It becomes a nondeductible contribution, reported separately on Form 8606.
The Roth IRA is the opposite. There is no deduction to lose, so the income band blocks the contribution itself. Two bands of the same shape, and one removes a benefit while the other closes the door.
What “covered” actually means
Which of the four bands you read comes down to one thing: are you covered by a plan at work? People trip on that test, and Publication 590-A spells it out.
The quickest check is your Form W-2: “The Form W-2 you receive from your employer has a box used to indicate whether you were covered for the year. The ‘Retirement plan’ box should be checked if you were covered.” Your employer has already made the call.
Behind that box the test forks. A defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) counts only if amounts were contributed or allocated to your account for that plan year. A defined benefit plan counts on eligibility alone — “If you are eligible to participate in your employer’s defined benefit plan… you are covered by the plan”. Nothing needs to have gone in.
So “I put nothing in this year, so I must not be covered” is not safe reasoning. Find out which kind of plan it is first.
Filing separately splits three ways
This is the gap we left earlier. Publication 590-A’s tables and their footnote turn married filing separately into three cases, not one.
If you are covered, the band is $0 to $10,000. If only your spouse is covered, it is the same $0 to $10,000 — Table 1-3 ends the deduction at “$10,000 or more”. At $10,000 wide, the deduction is all but gone either way.
Then the footnote to that same table turns it over: “You are entitled to the full deduction if you didn’t live with your spouse at any time during the year.” Spouse covered, lived apart all year, and you deduct the lot. If you are the covered one, the body rule — “if you lived apart from your spouse during the entire year, you are treated as single” — puts you in the single band of $81,000 to $91,000.
Neither $0 to $10,000 band carries a cost-of-living adjustment, so they do not move from year to year — the same property as the Roth contribution band for separate returns.
Questions this leaves
Why contribute to a traditional IRA with no deduction?
This piece does not make that judgement. Nondeductible contributions are entangled with what happens on a later Roth conversion — the pro-rata rule — which turns on your other IRA balances and so differs person to person. That is past what the source documents settle. Work it through with a tax professional first. That each of the two steps appears in IRS documents is noted in 401(k) vs Roth IRA.
If only one spouse is covered, are the bands different for each of us?
Yes. The covered spouse reads $129,000 ~ $149,000 and the uncovered one $242,000 ~ $252,000. Two people on the same return with different bands — and the same MAGI figure feeding both. So one of you can be at zero while the other still deducts in full.
Do the deduction bands have the $10 round-up and $200 floor?
They do — the wording is if anything clearer on this side: “If the result isn’t a multiple of $10, round it to the next highest multiple of $10. (For example, $611.40 is rounded to $620.) However, if the result is less than $200, enter $200.” Different band widths mean different floor widths. There is more in the cliff the $200 floor creates.
What about a separate return where only the spouse is covered?
It is $0 to $10,000 — unless you lived apart all year, in which case you get the full deduction (see above). The news release does not carry that combination; Publication 590-A’s table and footnote do. It is now in the calculator too — if it applies to you, go to the relevant table in Publication 590-A directly.
Does having a 401(k) mean I am “covered”?
Yes, if something was contributed or allocated for you that plan year. Defined contribution plans turn on contributions; defined benefit plans turn on eligibility (see above). The fastest check is the “Retirement plan” box on your Form W-2 — Publication 590-A says so directly: “The ‘Retirement plan’ box should be checked if you were covered” (the same sentence the Korean edition already quoted; rechecked 23 September 2026). If the box looks wrong, check your plan document (the SPD) and ask your employer.
Sources and where to check
IRS news release — IR-2025-111 (based on Notice 2025-67). The four traditional deduction bands are its figures — single and covered, “increased to between $81,000 and $91,000”; joint and covered, “increased to between $129,000 and $149,000”; joint with only the spouse covered, “increased to between $242,000 and $252,000”; separate, “remains between $0 and $10,000.” The three Roth bands are from the same document. (irs.gov)
IRS Publication 590-A — source for “the deduction may go but the contribution stays” — “Although your deduction for IRA contributions may be reduced or eliminated, contributions can be made to your IRA up to the general limit.” Also the source for the $10 round-up and the $200 floor. (irs.gov)
Our own calculation — the widths $15,000, $10,000, $10,000 and $20,000 are the two published figures subtracted; “the joint deduction band is exactly twice the contribution band” and “the two $242,000 ~ $252,000 bands match exactly” were confirmed from those same figures. The per-$1,000 amounts ($500, $750, $375) are the $7,500 limit divided by each width.
IRS Publication 590-A, the coverage test and separate returns — “The ‘Retirement plan’ box should be checked if you were covered”; defined contribution, “amounts are contributed or allocated to your account for the plan year”; defined benefit, “If you are eligible to participate… you are covered”; the Table 1-3 footnote, “You are entitled to the full deduction if you didn’t live with your spouse at any time during the year”; and the body rule, “if you lived apart from your spouse during the entire year, you are treated as single”. (irs.gov)
How “eligible to participate” is decided — Publication 590-A goes one step further (checked 27 September 2026): you are covered by a defined benefit plan if you are eligible to participate for the plan year that ends within your tax year, and that holds even if you declined to participate, did not make a required contribution, or did not perform the minimum service to accrue a benefit that year. What remains is when eligibility begins, which the plan document sets — look for “eligibility” in your SPD.
As of August 2026, federal only. Not investment or tax advice. To see it as an amount for your own income use the IRA contribution and deduction calculator; for the two kinds of IRA, the IRA guide; for the 401(k) alongside them, 401(k) vs Roth IRA.
