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Welcome to the Stay Wealthy Podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Schulte, and today is gonna be a monster, monster episode. I'm really excited to talk to you guys about this today. Today, we're gonna talk about the steps you need to take to lower your tax bill in retirement because it is very, very possible for you to have a higher tax bill in retirement than as a working professional. I know that's hard to believe, but follow along and you will learn why that is. If you're retired or approaching retirement, this episode is for you.
If you're still in the working world, but starting to think ahead about your retirement planning, this episode is really for you. For all the details, links, and show notes, you can go to youstaywealthy.com slash 39. And if you have any questions for a future show, or you just want to say hi, shoot me an email at podcast at youstaywealthy.com. Okay, let's go take down Uncle Sam. ♪
You know that saying, if I knew then what I know now, I would have dot, dot, dot, fill in the blank. That's exactly what I want to prevent from happening to your retirement plan because there's a fairly small window where
where tax planning for retirement can be really, really, really powerful. And the sooner you begin implementing this stuff, the better. So I don't want you to wait so long into retirement that you finally learn this stuff and realize, oh man, there's so many things I could have done over the last 10 or 15 years.
to put myself in a better position. So that's my goal today is to prevent that from happening. I want you to get into retirement and feel really, really good about all the planning that you did to get there. Really quick, a disclosure. Please talk to your tax expert and trusted financial advisor before doing anything. This is just for informational purposes only. We're gonna be talking about a lot of tax stuff, a lot of general comments. This stuff is really challenging.
really unique to your situation. So please talk to your tax expert and financial advisor before doing anything. Okay, with that out of the way, I wanna start with some basics to build the foundation for implementing these tips that we're gonna talk about today.
And where I want to start might seem really basic, but just hang with me here for a second because it's going to be really helpful as I continue on. I want to talk about first, before we go any further, IRAs and RMDs. RMDs are required minimum distributions. So let's start with RMDs.
IRAs. Most of your retirement savings will eventually end up in IRAs as you approach and enter into retirement. Maybe you already have a good chunk of your money in IRAs right now. Maybe you're saving outside of your company 401k in an IRA for some additional retirement savings. Maybe
Or maybe you've rolled over some old 401k accounts into IRAs. So you might have some money currently in IRAs right now, or maybe all of your money is in your employer plan, like a 401k or 403b.
One misconception that I'll throw out there that we hear from time to time is people think that because they're contributing to their company 401k, that they can't also put money in an IRA. And that's not true. You can do both. And if you're able, you should do both. So the goal would be to max out both your retirement plan at work and also an IRA account at work.
outside of work. Now, you might not get the full tax deduction when making those IRA contributions, but it's still a powerful tax-deferred savings vehicle. So we want to fill up both of those accounts. So again, eventually most of your retirement savings will end up
in an IRA. Even if you're using a 401k today, when it comes to retire, you're going to end up rolling those 401k or 403b dollars into an IRA. If you don't do it, your company will go ahead and do it for you without your permission. They have that ability. So when you part ways with your employer and retire, it's going to be a lot of work.
you might as well take control of this, roll it into an IRA and then enter retirement. Otherwise they will go ahead and do it for you. And they're probably going to put it in something really expensive with a bunch of fees. So IRAs are a really important piece to this puzzle. And the reason I'm leading this conversation off by talking about them is because there are some rules around tapping into your IRA dollars. You've
worked really, really hard over the last 20, 30, 40 years. You've got all this money in retirement savings. You've rolled it over into an IRA. And now you have to be really careful about taking money out of the IRA because there are some tax rules around this. The big one that I'll touch on is you can't take money out before 59 and a half. We're
without paying a penalty plus the normal tax bill that you would pay. So that's the big one is you can't or don't want to touch this money before age 59 and a half, but you can't delay withdrawals forever. As you might know, at age 70 and a half, the IRS forces you to start taking withdrawals
and paying taxes on that money. These are called required minimum distributions, which I'm going to refer to going forward as RMDs. So again, one, you can't take money out before age 59 and a half without paying a penalty. And then two, at age 70 and a half, the IRS says, okay, you've delayed this long enough. It's time for you to start paying taxes. We're
Now, here's the thing. If you've been saving money inside of 401ks and IRAs for a long time, these RMDs at age 70 and a half can be gigantic. You could have a huge tax bill when you turn 70 and a half and these RMDs kick in, especially if you have social security kicking in. Maybe you have a
pension, maybe you have rental property income, add all this stuff up. And if you've been a diligent saver, you could have a giant, giant tax bill at age 70 and a half.
Also keep in mind, when you take these RMDs, you might not need them or you might not spend them. You might reinvest these RMDs into interest-bearing securities, maybe stocks that pay a dividend, maybe a money market account. But regardless, you're going to be earning some interest and dividends on this money, which is now taxable every single year. So not only are you paying income taxes on the RMD withdrawal, but
But then you're going to take that RMD, invest it potentially, and pay taxes on dividends and interest each year as you go forward. Some of your income sources we can't control, but we can definitely control RMDs, especially if you start planning early enough.
And if we can plan ahead and keep RMDs as low as possible, we can save a fortune on taxes and retirement. And that's really what I want to talk about today. Really quick, before we move on, I do want to note that there are two different types of IRAs. And you might already know this, but you might learn a few new things here. So just really quick, in general, there are two types of IRAs. There are traditional IRAs and there are Roth IRAs.
When you put money into a traditional IRA or a traditional 401k, you get a tax deduction. There are a few situations where that might not happen, but let's just keep it simple and just make that assumption for this example. So traditional IRA, you put money in, you get a tax deduction, your money grows tax deferred. And then when you go take money out in retirement, you'll pay taxes on that withdrawal.
On the flip side, when you put money into a Roth IRA, you don't get a tax deduction. And here's the kicker. You don't pay taxes when you take money out. So you put money in the Roth, no tax deduction. That's okay. Your money is going to grow tax deferred, which is awesome because tax deferral plus compounding interest is magical. And then all your money comes out tax-free.
So to recap, traditional IRA, tax deduction going in, pay taxes on the way out, Roth IRA, no tax deduction when putting money in, and no taxes on the way out. Because there are no taxes on money coming out of a Roth IRA, the IRS doesn't care if it ever comes out.
It doesn't matter because they're not gonna get a payment. It's not income to you. So the IRS doesn't care, which means you don't have RMDs on Roth IRA accounts. No RMDs means no taxes, which means you have a lower tax bill. So we wanna get as much money as possible
into a Roth IRA at the lowest cost by paying the lowest amount of taxes. So that's really what we're after today is let's get as much money into a Roth IRA so that we don't have these RMD issues later on in retirement. You might be asking yourself,
How can I do this? I thought I made too much money. I thought there were income limits. How can I get money into a Roth IRA, mitigate these RMDs and lower my tax bill? Well, that's where things get really, really nerdy. And that's what we're going to dig into for the rest of this episode. The short answer for how to accomplish this is to plan for your gap years. The
The gap years provide a special opportunity for financial planning, which can do three things. One, it can reduce your taxes, which we're talking a lot about today. Two, planning in your gap years can increase the after-tax value of your investments. So your investments have a certain rate of return, but a lot of times you pay taxes on that return. So careful planning in your gap years can improve your after-tax return, which is really, really what we care about.
And then lastly, planning in your gap years can just set up a game plan for your money so it can be optimized for the rest of your life. So what are these gap years that I'm speaking of? The gap years are simply the time between the start of your retirement and when your RMDs begin.
So if you retire at age 60 and RMDs start at age 70 and a half, we don't have control over that, right? The IRS forces us at age 70 and a half to start taking these RMDs, but you retire at age 60, RMDs start at 70 and a half.
The years between those two events, those are your gap years. So in this example, you would have 10 and a half years in your gap years to really take advantage of some serious, serious retirement and tax planning. So there are a total of six years
things that you should do to properly plan during your gap years. And I'm going to go one by one through each of these today. So you can fully understand how powerful planning during these gap years really is. And remember, your gap years might not be 10 and a half years, it might be five years, it might be seven years. So everybody's going to be a little bit different here. But identify what your gap years are. Maybe it's not something you can estimate, or maybe you don't have full control over it. But
Everybody's going to be a little bit different there. So there are a total of six things that I think you could do to properly plan and really start to mitigate your taxes during retirement.
The first one's an easy one, and you've heard this probably a gazillion times, but I'm going to explain in a little bit more detail. So you might learn a few new things here. But the first one is to delay social security to age 70. So we talk a lot about focusing on things that we can control, and this is definitely one of those things.
And it's definitely one of those things that people don't put a lot of thought into. Sometimes they just, hey, I'm eligible for social security. I'm just going to take it. But this is something you really, really want to pay attention to and really carefully plan for. By delaying your social security, you're going to save taxes and you're also going to increase your income. So a win-win here. Now, the trick is, is that not everyone is really able to do this because it depends on your resources, right? Resources might include cash savings at the
bank, investments in a taxable brokerage account, money in Roth IRAs, maybe an employer pension. You might have an inherited IRA, and that might be a resource for you. Distributions from a business could be one, and maybe a popular one would be income from a rental property. So
If you have other resources and you can lean on these resources to provide you income before age 70, then you should definitely delay Social Security. Now, sometimes people think by delaying Social Security, that means that they can't go on that trip or can't go on that vacation or can't spend as much money, that they have to wait for that Social Security check to start to spend money. And that's not true.
I'm just saying that you should spend that money and take that money out of different accounts while you delay that social security check. And again, not everyone has that luxury. You have to make sure that you have those resources in place in order to take advantage of this. But if you can lean on those resources...
then definitely, definitely, definitely consider delaying social security. Why is this? Two really main reasons why. Number one, you're going to get more money from the social security administration. Every year you postpone, the rate of return on your benefits increases by about 8%. And as everybody knows, a guaranteed 8% return on any investment anywhere in the world is
is pretty much impossible. So kind of a no-brainer to take advantage of this, again, if you're able to lean on other resources. So you're going to get more money from the Social Security Administration the longer you wait. So let's wait as long as possible. The second big reason why this is important is you're going to reduce your taxable income during your gap years while you do partial Roth conversions. So remember, your Social Security check is income to you.
And those payments, that income is partially taxable. So by delaying, you're postponing those taxes, which is decreasing your income, which means you should be in a lower tax bracket during these gap years if you're delaying Social Security.
And when you're in a lower tax bracket, that's the time when you want to do partial Roth conversions. Now, I said at the start of this that there are six things you should do to properly plan in your gap years. And delaying Social Security is the first and it's probably the easiest. The next is, and maybe you guessed it, is doing partial Roth conversions. So let's talk about partial Roth conversions. What's the first thing you should do?
With a partial Roth conversion, you're going to take a little bit of money out from your traditional IRA, and you're going to put it in your Roth IRA. Now, as you already know from earlier, when you take money out of a traditional IRA, remember you want to be at least 59 and a half so you don't get hit with the penalty. So let's say in my example of retiring at 60 is when you can start to do this.
But as you already know from earlier, when you take money out of the traditional IRA, you're going to pay taxes on that money. Why would you want to take money out of your traditional IRA and pay taxes on it? Because again, in your gap years, especially if you delayed Social Security, you're going
The hope is that you're in a really low tax bracket and taking money out of that traditional IRA now while you're in this really low tax bracket is going to cost you less than
than if you waited until age 70 and a half when RMDs have to kick in, it could cost you a lot more. So while you're in this lower tax bracket is when you really want to start to consider taking money out of the traditional IRA, putting it in the Roth and doing these partial Roth conversions.
So with a partial Roth conversion, you're essentially paying small amounts of taxes each and every gap year. Partial Roth conversions, if you do them correctly and you do them when it's optimal, you're going to reduce that future tax burden because you're going to pay those taxes now when you're in that really low tax bracket and you're not going to have to pay them
later on when you're potentially in a huge tax bracket, when all this other income starts kicking in. Now, here's the thing with partial Roth conversions. It's not a one and done thing. It's something that you have to revisit every single year. You're gonna wanna lean on your tax professional, your financial planner. You're gonna wanna do an analysis every single year to make sure you're taking out the right amount from the traditional IRA. So every year, you're gonna wanna revisit this
You may even revisit it multiple times per year, but there's not just a rule of thumb with how much to take out. Everyone's going to be in a little bit different of a situation, a little bit of a tax bracket situation. And so make sure each year you're working with the professionals in your life to do that analysis and take the correct amount for the partial Roth conversion.
So the partial Roth conversion was number two of six. Number three is to manage your employer pension. So not everybody is lucky enough to receive a pension these days. So it may not apply to you, but you may have other sources of income that you can supplement the word pension for. But if you're set to receive a pension from an employer, this needs to be factored into your financial planning during these gap years.
So just like Social Security payments, those monthly pension benefits are subject to income taxes. It's income to you. You're going to pay taxes on it. The best financial planning move for you would be to put these partial Roth conversions into play before this pension begins. Because again, when that pension begins, you could be in a higher tax bracket, which could make these partial Roth conversions even more expensive.
Most pension benefits begin at age 65. So if you retire at 60 and you have the right resources in place and you delay social security, realistically, you could have about five really good years of partial Roth conversions.
Then at age 65, your pension kicks in and your taxable income goes up. Potentially you're in a higher tax bracket now. Now you still might be able to do some partial Roth conversions until social security kicks in and RMDs kick in. But again, you're going to have to do that analysis each year to see if the numbers make sense or not. So you're not completely out of luck, but definitely before that pension kicks in, you might have some really, really, really strong years to do a lot of Roth conversions.
The careful planning of social security benefits, your pension benefits, partial Roth conversions, all of this can allow you to decrease your taxable income during the early portion of your gap years. And again, this is going to reduce future taxes on your RMDs. Your RMDs are going to be smaller, which means less taxes when you're in that higher tax bracket.
All right. So that was number three. Number four, the fourth thing that you should really, really be focused on in your gap years is to consider charitable giving. If charitable giving at any level is important to you and part of your financial plan, or maybe you intend on making it a part of your financial plan in the future, careful planning during your gap years can really
really, really make giving back way easier on your wallet. You can save a lot more money on taxes and give a lot more to those organizations. Now, of course, you can make charitable donations anytime you want. If you feel inclined to write that check today, go for it. I don't want to stop you from doing that if that's what's important to you. But there are certain strategies that
that can create a better tax savings. And again, not only will it save you some money, but it also might put more money in the organization's pocket. So you might actually be doing more for the organization.
Let's go ahead and stick with our previous assumption that you retire at age 60. You might think that now that you're retired, you want to start doing some charitable giving. You've got time to do some research. You've got time to get involved. However, the best strategy for charitable giving, again, given all the right resources, is to retire at age 60.
is to wait for required minimum distributions to kick in at age 70 and a half. So we want to delay our charitable giving until age 70 and a half. And the main reason for this is because you can turn your RMDs into what's called a qualified charitable contribution. And we're just going to call this a QCD for short.
So you can turn your RMDs into a QCD. And really all this means is at age 70 and a half, the IRS again is going to say, hey, you've never paid taxes on these IRA dollars. We need you to start taking out some of this money and paying taxes on it in which you can say, okay, that's great. I'll take money out of my IRA, but I'm going to immediately redirect it to a charity or
And by doing this, this is called a qualified charitable contribution, taking that RMD and transferring it directly to the charity of your choice. And this can count towards that required minimum distribution set by the IRS.
So we've already established that RMDs create a tax bill for you. But if you make a QCD, a qualified charitable contribution, instead of putting that RMD directly in your pocket, then that amount is going to be excluded from your taxable income. And if you're already charitably inclined, if you're already going to give, let's say, $10,000 to this organization anyways...
then you might as well use that to offset that RMD. Again, money to the charity, that's all great. And then no taxable income to you, which is also great. The other cool thing about QCDs is that they don't require you to itemize your deductions. So there's been a lot of tax law changes recently. And one of the big ones is the standard deduction limits were increased. So not as many people are going to be itemizing their deductions here in the near future.
But that doesn't matter with QCDs. Whether you itemize or take the standard deduction, you can still use this QCD for charitable giving. A few other little things to know about these qualified charitable contributions, these QCDs. Number one is you must be 70 and a half or older. Number two, QCDs are limited to the amount that would
otherwise be taxed as ordinary income. Number three, the maximum amount annually for a QCD is $100,000 per spouse. And number four, something to pay close attention to because we've seen people run into this issue. Number four is that charity must be a 501c3. So make sure you do some quick research on the charity, get their tax ID number and verify that they're a 501c3.
So in summary, one of the best ways to navigate taxes and maintain your charitable giving in retirement is to go ahead and wait to give money until you're age 70 and a half.
With Social Security and possibly your pension kicking in during these later years, you're likely going to be in a higher tax bracket than in those gap years. When you make charitable donations in a higher tax bracket, you're going to pay less in taxes. Also, and I think this is most important here, and I think really, really pay attention to this,
waiting until age 70 and a half, although maybe if you're 60 today and you really, really want to donate money, totally understand. But remember this, waiting until age 70 and a half allows all of that money inside of your IRA to continue to grow tax deferred for another 10 years. So if you have a really good investment plan in place, you can grow that money over the next 10 years, which means now you can donate even more.
more money to these organizations and make even a bigger impact for that charity. So if you were to ask the charity, what would you prefer? They would say, hey, invest that money and give us a lot more later on. So again, you're going to reduce your tax bill and you're going to put more money in their pocket. And you're also going to be able to manage these RMDs a little bit better.
Okay, the fifth important thing to consider during your gap years is to carefully manage your other income sources. So maybe charitable giving isn't your thing. Maybe you're not able to do it. That's totally okay. Maybe you don't have a pension, but there are still other opportunities to manage other income sources and other taxes during your gap years.
The first one I want to talk about is realizing your capital gains. Now, the big talk is always about tax loss harvesting to sell investments at a loss and book those losses. I'm going to talk about the opposite of that. I'm going to say that during your gap years, if the stars align and you're really in that lower tax bracket and you're delaying Social Security and you're doing all the right things, you're
then during your gap years, you may consider realizing capital gains, which means paying taxes. Now, capital gains is just a fancy way of saying you bought an investment and you made money on that investment. So when you go to sell that investment, you're going to pay taxes on the difference between what you paid for it and what you sold it for. For
For some reason, sometimes when we talk about stocks and bonds and things like that, people's eyes kind of glaze over. But think about it in terms of real estate. Everyone's purchased a home. Most people have purchased a home. If you bought that home for $500,000 and now that home is worth a million dollars, you have a capital gain of $500,000.
you might have to pay taxes on that gain. Now, in real estate, there are some exclusions that apply. We won't go into that, but that $500,000 is your capital gain. Same thing with your investments. If you invest $500,000 into stocks and bonds and it's grown to a million dollars, now you've got a $500,000 capital gain.
So you only pay capital gains tax on taxable brokerage accounts. You're not going to pay capital gains on retirement accounts like IRAs and 401ks. This only applies to those taxable brokerage accounts that you have.
We've already established that you're likely going to be in a lower tax bracket during your gap years. Ideally, that's the situation you're going to be in. So you might consider going with the theme for today. You might consider realizing those capital gains in your taxable brokerage accounts as
during your gap years while you're in this lower tax bracket? Why would you delay them later when your pension kicks in or social security kicks in, your RMDs kick in, and all of a sudden you're in this really high tax bracket and now you have to pay capital gains? Let's do it while you're in a lower tax bracket. And if you're in a low enough tax bracket, you might even be able to pay 0% on these long-term capital gains.
You're definitely going to want to work with your trusted advisors every year to determine if this is appropriate for you, how much to sell, how much to realize. So please don't go and just blow out of all your investments and pay capital gains. Definitely do some homework here and some analysis to determine how much and then how many years you might do this for.
The second thing in here in regards to our fifth thing here, which is carefully managing other income sources. So the first is realizing capital gains. The second is accelerating income. So maybe you have a side business. You might consider distributing more income to yourself out of the side business during your gap years. Again, this is because you're likely going to be in a lower tax bracket during your gap years.
similar to realizing capital gains. Don't just go paying yourself a bunch of money. Make sure you work with the right person, your trusted advisors, your accountant. Make sure that you're accelerating your income correctly, that you choose the right amount, and that it doesn't totally mess you up. But again, given the right situation, if you're in a low tax bracket, accelerate that income, pay those capital gains. It could really, really work out in your favor long term.
The last here is to postpone expenses. So this applies if you have a business or a rental property that's generating income, it might make sense for you to postpone some expenses, not capital expenditures, but expenses. Postpone these expenses until you reach RMD age, age 70 and a half.
So with a rental property, this might mean waiting to replace the carpet or repainting a unit. If you can postpone these expenses until you have to take RMDs, then you'll really be able to further decrease your income. Again, lower income means lower tax bill in retirement.
Okay, the sixth and last thing that you should really plan for during your gap years, and this really ties everything together really nicely, is to manage those RMDs in the chance you're still working. So more and more people these days are working well into their 70s.
Maybe they love their job. They really enjoy what they do. They're having a hard time giving it up. Maybe they have to work, but it's becoming more and more common. So you may not have these gap years. You may still be working, but
And so some of the stuff we talked about today might not apply. For instance, you may not want to do partial Roth conversions if you're still working. If you're working, that means you're generating income and income means taxes, which means you might be in a higher tax bracket, which means you might not want to do partial Roth conversions while you're in this higher tax bracket. So some of this stuff that we talked about today might not apply. However, if
If you're still working in your 70s, there are two things that you can do to carefully plan and potentially reduce your tax bill. Now, the first we've already talked about, which is delaying Social Security. But delaying Social Security is especially true if you're still working because...
you already have income. You're working, you're earning income. Hopefully you don't need even more income. So delay that social security payment. Taking social security would just be more taxes on top of your current income taxes. So that's the no brainer is delay social security. Now, if you need the money, if you don't have other resources, that's a different story. But hopefully if you're still working, you don't also need social security. So delay that.
But the second, and this is the cool little trick, is that you can prevent RMDs if you continue to work into your 70s. Now, typically, again, the IRS forces you to take RMDs at age 70 and a half. But if you take advantage of this little trick here, you can avoid them or delay them, I should say. So we've already established that RMDs create a tax consequence. So we want to manage them carefully.
One way to manage them is through QCDs. We discussed that. You can use your charitable giving to offset those RMDs, those taxes. But the other way is if you're still working. If you're still working, you get to take advantage of this little trick to continue to delay RMDs past age 70 and a half. And here's what you can do. You can roll all of your traditional IRAs and other tax-
advantage retirement plans, like maybe you have old 401ks or old 403bs from old employers. You're going to take all this stuff and you're going to roll it into your current employer retirement plan. So maybe you're working and you have a 401k at that job. You're going to take all the other stuff that you have, the old 401ks, the old IRAs, and you're going to roll them into your current plan.
Now, if you get all of your retirement dollars into your current employer plan, you don't need to take RMDs as long as you're still working. If you leave money in other retirement accounts outside of the employer plan, you're not going to be able to take advantage of this. So if you're going to work into your 70s, consider consolidating everything with your employer so that you can further delay these RMDs past age 70 and a half.
Quick note, this only applies if you're not an owner of the company. So if you're an owner of the company, this is not something you could take advantage of. Okay. Well, that was a lot. I went through a lot of things there today. I tried to keep it high level, but if you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back and
And while you're patting yourself on the back, remember, you can head over to youstaywealthy.com slash 39, and you can get all the details, links, resources, PDFs, additional articles, things I mentioned in this episode. Everything is right there and available to you. You don't have to sign up for anything. There's no email address or anything like that. I'm just here to help. So go to youstaywealthy.com slash 39. You can continue learning and go ahead and grab those resources.
The conclusion here is simple. With careful planning during your gap years, you can keep more money in your pocket and pay less in taxes. But the key is that you have to start planning now. If you're already into retirement, don't kick yourself too hard. There's still some things we talked about today that you can implement. But by planning ahead and carefully planning during your gap years, you might be able to enjoy a nicer retirement
and or make a bigger impact on things that are really, really important to you by giving back to organizations, charities, or even your community. So thank you, thank you, thank you for listening. I'm really having a lot of fun with this podcast. It continues to grow. We continue to get more engagement and traction. If you have any questions, any feedback, again, you can shoot me an email at podcast at youstaywealthy.com. And I will see you back here in two weeks.
This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. This podcast is not engaged in rendering legal, financial, or other professional services. ♪