When I did my in-plan Roth conversion, they showed the transactions which included number of shares for C/S/I/F moved from Trad to Roth. So, they are definitely tracking shares. The fact they do not display the current share amounts for Roth vs. Trad seems very non-transparent. You can never truly validate their numbers and it seems like they do not want you to do so. This is what I am belly aching over. Lack of transparency makes me lose trust in TSP.Yes, this is related to #2 I referenced. Their official response to the Federal Registry comment was you can track it yourself.
A lot of 401k custodian transfers still use paper checks, that's not just the TSP.
Yes that is what I am learning now, and it jives with what the call center folks were saying. However, this is a change from how it was done prior to the new system change in 2022. The primary example I have in my case, is in the old system, I had no F-fund in Roth, only in Trad. Just prior to that I had left for private sector and did not make any new TSP contributions. It seems after the new system took over, that was changed where my overall allocation of Roth vs. Trad is now spread across my overall C/S/I/F percentages. I could be wrong but that is what I'm guessing.MichDad said in his "Improving the TSP [for current participants]" thread the other day that the TSP is NOT actually tracking traditional TSP vs. Roth TSP assets separately, meaning that if you contribute everything to the traditional TSP for years and invest it all in the G Fund, and then you switch to contributing everything to the Roth TSP and invest all of that in the C Fund, at the end of the day you'll have an equal mix of both the G Fund and the C Fund in each of your traditional and Roth TSP.
I've done over $xxx,xxx transfers/conversions in each of the last 3 years from TSP to my Fidelity Roth IRA, all by check and mail, never had a problem. Took about 5 business days to complete the transfer/conversion.
Last year, I did a transfer/rollover of over $x,xxx,xxx from my 401K to TSP, all by check and one-day delivery mail; that took a week to complete. No problem there, either.
If you're concerned about transfers/conversions from TSP to Fidelity Roth IRA, by mail, you can do an indirect rollover/conversion, which I did when I wanted to increase my Federal tax withholding. I did an indirect rollover/conversion for $50K in 2024, with $10k withheld for Federal income taxes. TSP deposited the $40K (distribution from TSP) in my bank account, 2 days after I initiated the transfer/rollover. A month after that occurred I had Fidelity pull $50K from my bank account to complete the indirect rollover/conversion -- all done electronically. Fidelity itself has it own limitations on indirect rollover/conversions as you need a customer service rep to pull the money from your linked bank account in Fidelity and to score/complete the conversion. I suspect you can also mail in a check to Fidelity for an indirect rollover/conversion.
It is good to hear examples where large paper checks were not lost. I have never done an indirect rollover before, so I will have to think about the ramifications of doing it that way. For some reason I am uncomfortable with TSP withholding Fed taxes and having it deposited directly into my bank account. But... that might be one way to do everything electronically and avoiding paper checks completely.
Right now, my thinking is that since I am mostly okay (meh) with my current CSIF allocation (CSI-heavy, F-lite), tentative plan is to continue in-plan Roth conversions as much as I can until I am forced to take RMDs, since this seems to be administratively the easiest. And put up with TSP's way of not tracking assets separately, even though it galls me. Once most of TSP has been Roth-converted, I will begin siphoning assets out of TSP into Fidelity or Vanguard.
Statistics: Posted by moxie_mm — Sat Feb 07, 2026 2:04 pm — Replies 8 — Views 307