he new Roth IRA is a real winner for a lot of taxpayers.

Yet a lot of them will pass it by this year, and next, and maybe for years to come. That's because either they don't understand the sucker, or they mistakenly think themselves ineligible.

Take a few minutes to read this - it could save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in your retirement. We promise to make it short and sweet.

Most working folks are eligible - even fairly high-income earners.

If you're single or a head of household, and your adjusted gross income is $95,000 a year or less, you're in. If you're married and file jointly, and your adjusted gross income is $150,000 or less, you're also eligible for the full $2,000 annual contribution. (If you're married and file separately, forget it.)

Note: You can participate in the Roth IRA whether you're participating in another retirement plan or not. And your non-working spouse can also do a full Roth IRA - which is a nice change.

You can contribute up to $2,000 and in most cases your spouse can contribute the same. If you're both 40 and work until age 65, that means you'll be able to put in $100,000 in a Roth IRA. Assuming 10 percent annual appreciation, that will give you a nest egg of more than $430,000 when you retire. And every penny of it will be tax-free.

With both the traditional and Roth IRAs, you can start tapping your nest egg at age 59╜. Otherwise, you pay a 10 percent penalty.

With the traditional IRA, you must start making withdrawals after you reach 70╜. Not so with the Roth. You can leave your money untouched until you die if you wish.

What's more, if you're a war horse who wants to work till you drop, you can continue kicking into a Roth IRA long after you've passed 60, or even 70. As long as you (or your spouse) earn an income, you can contribute to a Roth IRA. Even if you're 75 and only do a little consulting on the side.

The Roth wins big. With traditional tax-deductible IRAs, you get deductions each year for your annual contributions. But all distributions, including any interest, dividends and capital gains, are taxed as ordinary income when you take money out.

The Roth IRA works the other way around - pay taxes now, enjoy it later. Your Roth contributions are not tax-deductible, but all distributions are tax-free - provided you hold the Roth IRA for at least five years and reach the age of 59╜.

There's another way of cracking your Roth IRA before reaching age 59╜ (other than by becoming disabled or dying). That's if you're a first-time homebuyer.

The homebuyer can be you, your spouse, your kids, grandkids, even your parents - as long as the buyer or spouse hasn't owned a primary residence for the past two years.

You can withdraw your non-deductible contributions from the Roth IRA, plus up to $10,000 in the plan's earnings, to help buy the home.

Any earnings you withdraw without meeting the above qualifications are subject to the same 10 percent penalty that distributions from traditional IRAs impose.

Think about it. Say you're in your late 50s, and have a hefty IRA account - enriched, say, by a rollover from your last job.

Wouldn't you love to have all that money sitting in a Roth IRA -so it wouldn't be taxed at all when you retire, no matter how well your portfolio performs? As it stands now, you'll get whacked when you start withdrawals.

Congress has come up with a scheme that permits you to convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. But there is a tax to pay, naturally. And the rules can get tricky.

You can convert existing IRAs to Roth IRAs if your adjusted gross income is less than $100,000 a year (not counting the amount of money you are transferring).

You will have to pay ordinary income taxes on the entire amount you roll over. Example: Say your IRA portfolio is worth $300,000. If you roll it over into a Roth IRA, you will owe ordinary income tax on that $300,000 - at your ordinary income tax rate. At the top bracket, that's about $120,000. Ouch. Most experts agree you should not roll over your IRA if you have to use some of that IRA money to pay taxes. The rules regarding the Roth say that if you use your IRA contributions to pay the taxes, it's declared a withdrawal and you will get hit with a 10 percent penalty.

Congress does give you a big one-time break. If you do your rollover in 1998, you can spread the income (and therefore the income tax) over a four-year period. This is a one-time window. After 1998, the entire amount will be taxed in single year.

Note: The amount of money you roll over has nothing to do with your $100,000 income limit on making a rollover.

How about a partial rollover? Sure it's possible. But you can't pick and choose which accounts you want to roll over and which you want to leave alone. The amount you roll over is considered taken equally from each IRA account you own.

The basic advantages of a Roth plan over a tax-deductible IRA are:

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