dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

If you treat all of the $90,000 as CRD on Form 8915-E, none of the $80,000 will be subject to any early-distribution penalty and and you can choose to include $26,667 of the income in 2020, $26,667 in 2021 and $26,666 in 2022.  The entire $10,001 withheld for taxes will be applied to your 2020 tax return liability and you can either have the excess withholding refunded of have the IRS apply it toward your 2021 tax liability and it will be treated as a 1st quarter estimated tax payment for 2021.  If you choose to have it refunded and you do not have a sufficient amount withheld for taxes from your 2021 income, you might owe a tax underpayment penalty with your 2021 tax return.

 

$10,001 of tax withholding would typically be sufficient to cover the additional tax liability resulting from $26,667 of income added to your 2020 income, but it really depends on your overall tax situation.  If most of the $10,001 of withholding goes to covering your 2020 tax liability, you'll likely want to make an estimated tax payment for the 1st quarter of 2021 and another for the 1st quarter of 2022 to cover the additional tax liability in those years resulting from the inclusion of $26,667 of the CRD income in each of those years.