For people who live in Duluth MN or Superior WI (right next to each other), it would be hard to always stay within state line.
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Good points about state line factors. Iâd only thought about risk of moving to another state (but maybe there are exceptions in that case?)
We live near the state border. Our state does not tax teacher pensions (and probably other public service pensions as wellâdonât know). The state next door does. I know of several teachers who moved across the state line upon retirement as a result of this fact.
Our state doesnât tax pensions but we are otherwise a VERY high cost of living (especially real estate) location.
Back in the day, the company I worked for would routinely move execs around to various places in the country. Once they were close to retirement age, if necessary, theyâd be moved from a state with an income tax or a tax on their retirement accounts back to Washington, where there is no income tax.
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DHâs small pension will be taxed- whether we stay here or move closer to the kids.
In the âdonât know what you donât knowâ, I am glad I was careful looking at personal dental plans. Our dentist is in network with Cigna, and only with one particular type of Cigna, but only one of the plans the agent was sending me for review were in that plan my dentist accepts. Glad I checked with the dentist office And that I double checked the policies being proposed.
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Coming back here bâc this is an IRMAA question: DH has retired from FT work (will be doing some selective consulting) but I will be needing to start taking RMDs. Looking at possible ways to get the IRMAA hit down. He wants to make donations from my 401 for the RMDs and use stock sales for extra cashflow (above my SS and his pensionâ he hasnât taken his SS yet). Ideas?
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When DH was still working and I wasnât, we found no way to reduce IRMMA. His income was simply too high. Itâs kind of hard to reduce your incomeâŠin my opinion.
In terms of reducing RMD, you can make charitable contributions and that helps, but how much do you want to make in those? We do a couple from an IRA of mine (Iâm the one who has RMD if I havenât drawn enough). But we havenât had an issue because I am drawing on one of my IRA accounts.
Next year, we will be facing RMDs for DH. He has been doing Roth conversions for the last few years, which will help.
Our FP makes sure our incomes will keep us below IRMMA increase, and different tax bracket. Then does a Roth conversion (and yes, we pay the taxes) on whatever amount wonât break that threshold.
We talked about this strategy too. We could use Roth $ for additional cashflow (DH has 2 more years before he will take his SS) and he likes to be pretty aggressive with donations, (thats always been true four him) and in recent years we paid them out of my IRA instead of a donor fund. I may be dreaming that we could lower our IRMAA but it is worth looking at.
I learned this week RMDs from 401k must be taken from each account while RMD can be combined for IRAs so you could elect to get the distribution from an account that may not be performing as well and leave the others alone.
I donât see why it would matter if you use the RMD money for living expenses or sell stocks. The RMD withdrawal is going to be taxed as income. The stocks are going to be taxed if you sell them, maybe at a lower rate but if you didnât sell them, they wouldnât be taxed. If the RMD provides enough for your living expenses (with SS and the pension), then you wonât need to touch the stocks.
Didnât know that about pulling RMDâs from all the accounts. DH probably does, but this is out of my wheelhouse. Do you have a link to where you learned that? As for stock sales, I think he is looking at LD vs ST gains 
I think I just googled RMD because I was looking at approximately how much Iâd have to take if I were doing it today (Iâm not) and how the minimum is calculated. It was talking about RMD and what the penalties were and that some administrators automatically send a check if you are 73 (new age) but that 401k admins are required to do the withdrawals across the board for all your funds.
IIRC, it was an article by Fidelity?
Just asked DH about it. He is aware of it. He also said that selling stocks with LT capital gains will be at a lower tax rate than the RMD from my 401. He may also pull some cash when needed from my Roth to try to get our IRMAA down. DH has multiple 401âs (not me) but he woot be 73 for quite a while.
Isnât IRMAA based on what your income was 2 years ago? Not much one can do about that.
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DH just retired from FT employment, so qualifies to file for a âsignificant life eventâ or whatever itâs called. https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-44.pdf
I made the follow for ref sheet when a retired relative was curious about current tax rates (not that the higher brackets are relevant to him or to us). I was aiming at showing him that LT cap gains tax not too awful on his old stock, even if he would be unable to calculate cost basis and opted to declare it as zero. And also to show that IRMAA risk not relevant as long as income less than $200K.
screenshot:
NOTE - The above may not be perfect, so do your own research as backup. Corrections/clarifications welcomed.
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If you are of RMD age, you can make charitable contributions from your IRA as QCDs, and that money will not be taxable or count towards IRMAA Note that QCDs can only be made from IRAs, not 401ks. What I did was to move some of my retirement account from the TSP (government 401K equivalent) to an IRAâenough so that my RMD from the IRA is enough to cover the charitable contributions I want to make for the year. Note that the amount of RMDs for a given year are calculated based on the iRA value on December 31st of the previous year. So, if you know you want to transfer money to an IRA to make QCDs for 2026, you need to be sure the money is in your IRA by December 31 2025.
Interesting. Do you have a link for that??
Various financial firms have nice write-ups on QCD, Fidelity and and Raymond James and Schwab examples below. (The government rules are same regardless of where you IRA is invested; the format of the info various by company.) An important point is that you can start doing QCD at age 70.5âŠ. ie before RMD age.
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Sure. Here is info from the (reputable) Bogleheads wiki: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Qualified_charitable_distributions
it is true you can start making QCDs at age 70.5,before RMDs are required, and we did so. While that reduces your IRA balance (eventually reducing RMDs when they are required), it doesnât have the immediate tax impact that you will get when it reduces required RMDs once you are at that age.
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