deceased spouse, IRA question.

[kevino1]

My spouse died in February. I assume my AIG is calculated as if the deceased was alive for the full year.

I.E, 2022 tables have 10% tax bracket as 10.2K-41.7K single and 20.5K-83.5K Married Filing Jointly (MFJ)

Since my spouse was deceased 10 months of the year, they had little SSA or 1099-R distributions.

Next year I will be capped near the 42K max income (10%) bracket. Can I, should I, withdraw the maximum amounts from my Traditional IRA before year end, to take advantage of the 83K max for MFJ? I do have some expense this year and if I wait, when I withdrawal later, I could be in a higher bracket based on projected retirement income.

Also,  to clarify, AIG is after standard deductions, so technically I can make the ~83K + the standard deductions (25,900 MFJ) and stay in the 10% effective bracket?

[Critter-3]

Your post is basically correct ... due to the natually  lower income this tax year due to the spouse's passing,  taking an IRA distribution is a good way   to take full advantage of the standard deduction in the last year of joint filing.  

[fanfare]

You're trying to stay in the 10% bracket so you have to prepare the projected tax return carefully.

( taxable income is after standard deduction , not AGI, maybe that's what you meant.)

You did not say your age so if you're under 59 1/2 you will pay early withdrawal penalty.

@kevino1 

[dmertz]

Just be carful about the taxation of Social Security income.  It's possible that even if the additional income falls in the 10% tax bracket the marginal tax rate could be as high as 18.5% due to additional income making more Social Security income taxable.  As fanfare said, prepare a projected tax return to see how much additional federal tax you pay with each $1,000 increase in ordinary income.

Since it seems that you don't need the additional IRA income to live on, it would be better to convert the additional traditional IRA distributions to Roth instead of just taking the money out.  The immediate taxable result would be the same but growth in the Roth IRA would be tax free instead of tax deferred one you meet the requirements for qualified Roth IRA distributions.  If you are under age 59½, doing so also avoids any 10% early-distribution penalty.