It wouldn’t be 100% by any means, luckily. Likely under 25% of our combined RMD’s. Good info!
Just found this on my IRA website: " I elect to have federal taxes withheld at a rate of ____% (specify a whole-number percentage from 10 to 99)."
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As blue bayou explained, there is no need to pay quarterly taxes when taking quarterly distributions as long as your fourth quarter distribution will cover your full fed tax liability. If it does, then you can wait until Dec to pay your taxes and have that Dec payment treated as if it had been received throughout the year.
The IRS is charging 8% interest, I believe, so you want to make sure you satisfy the Safe Harbor limits, and as BB pointed out, the IRS charges 1.8% for CC payments, at a minimum, so unless you are using your tax payments to satisfy a CC sign-up bonus and/or receive more than 2% back from your CC company, probably not worth paying via CC.
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Just search QCD, qualified charitable distribution. You should be able to, AFAIK. May also be worth investigating a DAF for those under age 73 (or whatever the current RMD age is). I think mine will be 75?).
Editing to add article that explains this nicely for the sake of others who may be reading along.
https://www.schwabcharitable.org/giving-with-ira#:~:text=Some%20donors%20may%20also%20find,charitable%20tax%20deductions%20are%20claimed.
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I know technically I should be able to do that, but not sure if there’s a way to pay directly to my synagogue from the IRA/401(K). All I can find for them is checks or credit card payments. But plenty of time to figure it out!
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The 1099-R from your broker will list the amount of the Fed and/or state tax withheld. I cannot remember if I have to enter that # manually into TurboTax or if it flows over the way the brokerage transactions do.
It actually is worth it for us to pay the 1.82% credit card fee, so we prefer to pay it via card. Airmiles are very valuable to us, and it will get one of our kids Delta DM status, which I value at about 3K.
We also aren’t getting quarterly distributions, but pulling it when needed not to go over the 24% tax bracket, and then taking from our Roth after that. It’s kind of hard to predict, as I’m not exactly sure when we’ll end up getting larger amounts from our DST or a boat sale.
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Is this considered a charitable donation? Find that out first.
We do our larger donations out of my IRA. I tell them what I want, and they send me a check which I then send on. If your synagogue dues are considered a charitable donation, why not just do this?
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Thanks for explaining - that makes sense in your situation. I was curious about paying 1.82% credit card fee when I checked to see on average “worth” of airmiles is less.
https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/articles/how-much-are-airline-miles-worth/
NOTE: I recently found having airmiles VERY helpful to book a tentative, emergency flight. (In that case possibly 24 hour cancel window might have worked too.). Once it was determined that immediate travel was not needed, cancelled and had immediate re-deposit of the United miles. Knowing that, I’ll try not to “run dry” on miles unless using them for an urgent need.
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Oh, I see, I’ll have to make sure my IRA/401(K) institutions can write such a check directly to the synagogue as part of the distribution. Yes, membership dues are reported as deductible contributions.
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Exactly. I tell them how I want the check made out (to whom) and the amount…they send to me, and I send to the charity. Because this is done this way, I don’t pay taxes on the distribution taken out…but also, I then can not declare this as a charitable donation on my taxes (would be considered double dipping).
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It is interesting how sometimes an airmiles ticket cost can be significantly lower than a paid for ticket, if one is considering it as a one to one ratio. We generally use Delta miles, which many people consider practically worthless (hence the nickname Sky Pesos). I get why they’re useless if you’re trying to go international business on a specific date (several thousand airmiles), but the way we use them (flexible in retirement, 15% off using a Delta cc, constantly cancelling/changing), we find them more useful than cash tickets where the credit expires in a year if you don’t use it. And in retirement, the last thing I want to do is to be putting up money that needs to be used in a year, or it goes kaput!
My company pays me a bonus at year-end (hopefully, as that means I have had a good year). In figuring out what to do with the bonus, the accountants make sure we satisfy the Safe Harbor for the deductions from the end of year bonus and also leave adequate funds to put into the pension plan. In the olden days, we were funding a DB plan and could save a lot. Now, we are funding a 401k, but I think one can put something like $77K into it (there is some kind of profit-sharing component, maybe – I really have not paid attention). My income often comes in fits and starts so the ability not to pay quarterly taxes is helpful.
We have not withdrawn from 401ks yet, but like @Marilyn, when I am required to do so, I will definitely be trying to figure out how to do QCDs. Thanks @thumper1 for the explanation.
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I fund my 401k out of my bonus beginning of year because then I get my firm’s match upfront. It’s not going to make me rich, but still…D1 has gotten in the habit of doing it too.
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We have a giving fund set up which we fund with stock every other year. As soon as it’s transferred to the giving fund, it can all be taken as a deduction at that time, so we itemize every other year. Then we make the donations to any 501c3 we choose. Our synagogue dues are not tax deductible, but we can make donations to the synagogue (in people’s memory, etc) from the giving fund.
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It was overdue (kids are in their 20s now and I don’t think my sibling would have liked to inherit them 
).
We did also update POAs and advanced directives. Talked to the kids about it all too. (It was actually my daughter who asked how it works if they inherited our retirement accounts.)
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I would check whether your synagogue dues are tax deductible. I believe church or synagogue membership is not considered to have tangible value and is therefore deductible and able to be paid for by your donor advised fund (or, later, via QCDs from your IRA). We have done this for years, and it has been allowed by the DAF.
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@jym626 Our synagogue dues are deductible and we receive a statement from the synagogue each year showing what was paid and deductible. Just got mine last week. We have been including this on our return each year.
We get a statement too. There are some things that are deductible and some that aren’t. So we can’t pay the dues out of our giving fund.
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We have a DAF that I used for my monthly church giving, which goes into general operating budget accounts. (Yea, it does feel funny to just pass the collection plate without putting anything in it. But it’s more efficient for me and for the church.) Supposedly there are rules against specifying some kinds of purposes - don’t know the details.
Reading all of this makes me realize I’ve got a lot to learn. We are early 60’s and about the only thing I do know is I shouldn’t take my SS yet.
I have a IRA, my husband has a SepIRA, no Roth IRA for us. We have never talked about converting to a Roth. I need to see if there are income limits to do so. I don’t see my husband being able to fully retire for years. Also we get income from real estate that will continue even after retirement. I don’t see a scenario of ever lowering our tax bracket or at least not by a lot. Obviously a blessing not a curse.
We don’t have a financial advisor and our accountant is a dinosaur who has worked with the business from before my husband was involved. We will make a change in the next year as it’s time.
We have a trust set up when the kids were young. I want to meet with someone and make sure we are not missing anything.
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