At 73, the IRS forces you to withdraw from your pre-tax accounts whether you need the money or not. If your IRA is large enough, that RMD can push you into a higher bracket, trigger IRMAA Medicare surcharges, and increase Social Security taxation — all at once. This episode shows you the window that's still open — and how long you have to use it.
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Episode 7 — RMDs: The Tax Bomb You Can Still Defuse
Quick math.
Take your current IRA balance. Project it forward at 6% annual growth for the years between now and age 73, with modest withdrawals for living expenses. Divide that balance by 26.5 — the IRS life expectancy factor for a 73-year-old.
That number is your first required minimum distribution.
Now add it to your Social Security income. Check your tax bracket. See whether you've crossed the IRMAA threshold. Watch what happens to the percentage of your Social Security that becomes taxable.
If that calculation just produced a number you weren't expecting — this episode is for you.
In Episode 7, Tod Long explains the RMD tax bomb: why it isn't something that happens to you at 73, but something that was built in the years before 73 — and why the window to reduce it is open right now.
RMDs feel unavoidable, but they're not a fixed event — they're the output of a calculation: pre-tax balance divided by an IRS life expectancy factor. The larger the balance at 73, the larger the mandatory withdrawal, taxed as ordinary income alongside Social Security and everything else. That forced income can push you into a higher bracket, trigger IRMAA — the Medicare Part B/D premium surcharge — and cause up to 85% of Social Security benefits to become taxable, all in the same year, simultaneously.
The 2026 IRMAA thresholds for individuals: below $109,000, the standard Part B premium is $202.90/month. Cross $109,000 and it jumps to $284.10; cross $137,000, $405.80; cross $171,000, $486.00; at $205,000 and above, $689.90/month (roughly double for couples filing jointly). IRMAA is based on income from two years prior, so a large RMD at 73 sets the surcharge tier for 75 — and once inside a tier, the elevated premium compounds forward across both Part B and Part D. For a married couple with a large IRA, sustained IRMAA exposure can run $6,000–$12,000/year on top of the income tax from the RMD itself.
The tax at 73 was built in the years before 73 — every year pre-tax dollars accumulated without a tax-diversification strategy. Which means the fix lives there too. Retirement income often drops sharply between 62 and 67, before Social Security starts, creating several years of unusually low marginal rates — a window where converting IRA dollars to Roth at 12% or 22% beats watching them compound toward a forced 32–35% distribution a decade later. Every year that window goes unused, the IRA balance grows larger, the projected RMD grows larger, and the eventual tax bill compounds. The window closes permanently the year RMDs begin, whether it was used or not.
James, 64, recently retired with $1.1M in a traditional IRA, $85,000 in a Roth, and Social Security of $34,000/year starting at 66, against $72,000 in annual expenses. Left alone, his IRA projects to $1.28M by 73, producing a first RMD of $48,300. Combined with Social Security, that pushes 85% of his benefit into taxable income, lands him in the 22% bracket, and puts him within range of the first IRMAA tier.
Instead: between 64 and 66, while his taxable income is low, James converts $35,000–$40,000/year from IRA to Roth at a 12% marginal rate — $342,000 converted over nine years. His projected IRA at 73 drops to $890,000, and his first RMD drops to $33,600 — a $14,700/year reduction that keeps him in the 12% bracket, keeps Social Security taxation lower, and keeps him well clear of IRMAA. Over a 20-year RMD period, that's over $290,000 in distributions — and tax — that simply never happen.
Left unused, the window costs quietly: ages 64–66 bring manageable 12%-bracket tax on IRA draws. By 73, the first $48,300 RMD lands alongside Social Security and pushes into the 22% bracket. By 75, the RMD grows to about $51,000 and crosses the first IRMAA tier, adding roughly $839/year in Medicare premiums. By 80, the RMD reaches $62,000 as the IRS life-expectancy factor shrinks with age. Across a 20-year RMD period, the cumulative avoidable federal tax and IRMAA surcharges together run approximately $240,000 — not lost to a market crash, just paid in full on income that was never planned for.
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