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Rain comments on Open Thread: April 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
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No, you cannot max both a Traditional and a Roth; it's either/or. Which one you choose depends on several factors, including length of investment and the income you predict you'll have during disbursement. Traditional is better if you expect low income in retirement, or a shorter time frame until retirement; Roth is better if you expect higher income or a longer time frame.
How do you pick when to switch, then? I assume tax-efficiency, but how tax-efficient should income be before you put it into Roth rather than Traditional? And how do you measure tax-efficiency of income?
I apologize if this is overly off-topic, of course.
It's been a while since I did primary research on the topic; I decided on a Roth for my personal circumstances and dumped most of the other knowledge afterward, so I'll be deferring to references: here are a couple articles about the topic of choosing between them, one which links to a calculator.
You measure tax efficiency by what percentage of the money you get to keep after it's been taxed in the context of your other income and investments. Putting tax-inefficient funds in tax-efficient formats like an IRA lets you keep a (hopefully much) larger percentage.
And I don't see how it's off topic in an Open Thread.