Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share RMDs: The Tax Bomb You Can Still Defuse
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
RMDs: The Tax Bomb You Can Still Defuse
Quick math.
Take your current IRA balance. Project it forward at 6% annual growth for the years between now and age 73, with modest withdrawals for living expenses. Divide that balance by 26.5 — the IRS life expectancy factor for a 73-year-old.
That number is your first required minimum distribution.
Now add it to your Social Security income. Check your tax bracket. See whether you've crossed the IRMAA threshold. Watch what happens to the percentage of your Social Security that becomes taxable.
If that calculation just produced a number you weren't expecting — this episode is for you.
I
n Episode 7, Tod Long explains the RMD tax bomb: why it isn't something that happens to you at 73, but something that was built in the years before 73 — and why the window to reduce it is open right now.
This episode covers:
The RMD mechanism — how required minimum distributions are calculated, why a growing IRA produces a growing forced withdrawal, and why the amount is determined by a balance you can still influence.
The triple tax cascade — how a large RMD can simultaneously push you into a higher marginal bracket, trigger IRMAA Medicare premium surcharges of up to $384/month per person, and cause up to 85% of your Social Security to become taxable income. All at once.
The IRMAA trap — what IRMAA is, how the two-year lookback works, why once you're in a surcharge tier it compounds forward, and what the real annual cost looks like for a married couple with sustained RMD exposure.
The pre-RMD window — why the years between retirement and age 73 are the most powerful tax planning opportunity most people never use, and what makes that window irreplaceable.
James's scenario — a 64-year-old with $1.1M in a traditional IRA, a projected first RMD of $48,300, a full tax cascade at 73 — and what nine years of proactive Roth conversion at 12–22% tax rates reduces it to, in both distribution size and lifetime tax cost.
The $240,000 built in silence — a year-by-year accounting of what an unused conversion window costs in federal tax and IRMAA surcharges over a 20-year RMD period, without a single emergency or market event required to produce it.
The conversion window closes at 73 — whether you used it or not. This episode is about what to do while it's still open.
Schedule The Income Standard Review at theincomestandard.com — no cost, no pitch, just measurement.
View all episodes
By Tod LongQuick math.
Take your current IRA balance. Project it forward at 6% annual growth for the years between now and age 73, with modest withdrawals for living expenses. Divide that balance by 26.5 — the IRS life expectancy factor for a 73-year-old.
That number is your first required minimum distribution.
Now add it to your Social Security income. Check your tax bracket. See whether you've crossed the IRMAA threshold. Watch what happens to the percentage of your Social Security that becomes taxable.
If that calculation just produced a number you weren't expecting — this episode is for you.
I
n Episode 7, Tod Long explains the RMD tax bomb: why it isn't something that happens to you at 73, but something that was built in the years before 73 — and why the window to reduce it is open right now.
This episode covers:
The RMD mechanism — how required minimum distributions are calculated, why a growing IRA produces a growing forced withdrawal, and why the amount is determined by a balance you can still influence.
The triple tax cascade — how a large RMD can simultaneously push you into a higher marginal bracket, trigger IRMAA Medicare premium surcharges of up to $384/month per person, and cause up to 85% of your Social Security to become taxable income. All at once.
The IRMAA trap — what IRMAA is, how the two-year lookback works, why once you're in a surcharge tier it compounds forward, and what the real annual cost looks like for a married couple with sustained RMD exposure.
The pre-RMD window — why the years between retirement and age 73 are the most powerful tax planning opportunity most people never use, and what makes that window irreplaceable.
James's scenario — a 64-year-old with $1.1M in a traditional IRA, a projected first RMD of $48,300, a full tax cascade at 73 — and what nine years of proactive Roth conversion at 12–22% tax rates reduces it to, in both distribution size and lifetime tax cost.
The $240,000 built in silence — a year-by-year accounting of what an unused conversion window costs in federal tax and IRMAA surcharges over a 20-year RMD period, without a single emergency or market event required to produce it.
The conversion window closes at 73 — whether you used it or not. This episode is about what to do while it's still open.
Schedule The Income Standard Review at theincomestandard.com — no cost, no pitch, just measurement.