Unless I am mistaken, your investments in either IRA grow tax free. In the case of the traditional IRA, you are taxed when you withdraw the money. In the case o

Unless I am mistaken, your investments in either IRA grow tax free. In the case of the traditional IRA, you are taxed when you withdraw the money. In the case of the Roth IRA, you are not. It is more a question of whether the returns on your investments are going to be significantly greater than your initial contributions. I certainly hope so, if you are compounding returns over decades. In that case, with a Roth IRA, you can create a lot of investment income tax free that would eventually be taxed in a traditional IRA. That, in a nutshell, is why I would prefer a Roth IRA. As a point of fact, I am not a "US person," so it is moot for me.