JohnS_CPA
Expert Alumni

Retirement tax questions

This question is difficult to answer without detailed knowledge of your non-retirement plan assets, retirement plan assets, spending needs and the distribution requirements contained in the retirement plan documents. In general, (and this is very general) you would typically take the minimum amount required out of the retirement accounts and use your non-retirement assets to fund remaining expenses. This would allow the retirement plan assets to continue to grow tax free.

 

However, this strategy is dependent upon how much of your expenses can be funded by the minimum distributions, what kind of taxable gains you would have to recognize if you had to sell stocks and mutual funds to cover expenses and what the investment options are within the retirement accounts.

Your pension and 401k/403B plan documents are going to contain some type of wording on how much and when you have to start taking distributions. When you will NEED distributions will depend on what other assets and/or income is available to you. The longer you can let retirement assets grow, tax free, the better (in general).

 

However, selling non-retirement mutual funds and stocks may generate a tax liability. The amount will depend on your holding period and cost basis. Capital gains (Selling price less cost basis) can have some favored tax treatment depending on holding period but whether it makes sense for you to recognize those gains before using retirement assets is a very individual analysis. For instance, do any of your taxable account holdings generate dividends you can use to fund expenses? It may make sense to hold them for the income vs selling.

Distributions from retirement accounts are taxed at ordinary income tax rates while long term capital gains are (currently) taxed at, generally, lower rates. But your actual tax rates will depend on the amount and mix of income. With proper planning you will be able to optimize your mix of income for not only the current year but over a longer period of time.

 

Working in your favor: you have assets in taxable and non-taxable accounts. This may provide you great flexibility in designing a retirement strategy. A detailed plan is best left to a financial planner and/or a CPA who has access to all your assets information and retirement plan documents.  

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