Roth, RMDs & Medicare
Conversion timing, required withdrawals, the IRMAA lookback, and what changes for a surviving spouse.
You have an advisor. Do you have a retirement tax plan?
The full walk, in order: Roth timing, rising RMDs, the Medicare cliff, the survivor’s trap, the 10-year rule, and the five questions to ask before saying yes to anything.
Read the guide →Potentially one of the best retirement tax strategies out there: just move.
Nine states take nothing from your retirement income. Move before the conversions and RMDs start — and establish residency properly — and the state’s share can go to zero. The sequencing, and the audit traps.
You converted this year. The bill lands in 2028.
The IRMAA two-year lookback, what counts as MAGI, and when Form SSA-44 can — and can’t — help.
Read →Same income. Half the brackets.
The widow’s penalty: what the survivor keeps, the three lines that cut in half, and why the joint-filing years are the window.
Read →Ten years to empty it — and a bill every year inside.
The 10-year rule, the 2024 annual-withdrawal surprise, who’s exempt, and why an inherited Roth plays by gentler rules.
Read →Born in 1959? Congress gave you two RMD ages.
The SECURE 2.0 drafting glitch, the IRS fix, what the two-year gap is worth, and the April 1 trap inside the first year.
Read →There are two Roth 5-year rules. Almost everyone conflates them.
One clock guards earnings from tax, another guards conversions from penalty — and after 59½, only one usually matters.
Read →One withdrawal. Forty cents on the dollar.
The 2026 thresholds, the combined-income formula, and the phase-in math planners call the tax torpedo.
Read →$6,000 off your taxes at 65 — until income takes it back.
The new senior deduction, the 6-cents-per-dollar phaseout, and the two big numbers it doesn’t touch.
Read →Same conversion. Two states. Six figures apart.
A federal law from 1996 decides which state can tax your conversion — and it turns on where you live the day you convert.
Read →Same ten years. Two different inheritances.
Whose bracket pays the tax on your IRA — yours in the window, or your heir’s at peak salary?
Read →Where the conversion tax comes from changes the result.
Pay it from inside the account and $76,000 of a $100,000 conversion reaches the Roth. Pay it from outside cash and all $100,000 does — same tax bill.
Read →Retiring at 55: the window, not the finish line.
Most nurses cannot fully stop work at 55 — the average recently retired nurse has about $370,000. What 55 can do is make the tax on your own savings cheaper than it will ever be again, if the money is in the right account on the day you leave.
Read it →Then see your own numbers.
Your brackets, your IRMAA headroom, your RMD clock — free, in about 3 minutes.
Open the free calculator →1031 exchanges & involuntary conversions
Two sections of the code, two sets of deadlines — and what a sale costs when neither one applies.
Same exchange. Fifty different states.
The federal clock is identical everywhere. What differs is whether the closing agent holds back your proceeds, whether the state expects a filing every year for as long as you own the replacement, and whether it comes back for the gain when you finally sell. Tap your state.
Open the state map →Which states do I have to file in?
The published filing thresholds are for people who work in a state. Income from property, or from a partnership that owns it, is judged by a stricter rule — and one 721 exchange can turn one state return into a dozen. Tick your states and get the question set your CPA would otherwise bill you to build.
Build my list →What would selling actually cost?
Capital gain, depreciation recapture and the 3.8% surtax, on your own five numbers. Most owners are working from a rough estimate, and rough estimates in this area tend to be off by a lot in one direction or the other.
Run my numbers →Done being a landlord? You have five exits — not two.
Keep and delegate, exchange easier, exchange passive, sell and pay, or hold for the step-up — the honest menu, what each path costs, and why only one of them guarantees a tax bill.
Boot: the part of your 1031 that stays taxable.
Keep $300,000 out of a $1,000,000 sale and the exchange survives — but that slice is taxed now. Cash boot vs. mortgage boot, the worked numbers, and the one-way netting rule that catches sellers at tax time.
The reverse 1031: buy first, sell second.
Found the right replacement before you’ve listed? The parking arrangement that makes it legal, the 180-day hard stop, the financing catch — and when a well-planned forward exchange beats it.
The installment sale: spread the tax, carry the paper.
Take the money over years and the gain follows the payments — except for the depreciation the code pulls into year one. What the down payment decides, and what you take on as the lender.
The charitable remainder trust: sell it without the tax bill.
The trust sells free of capital gains tax at that moment and pays you for life. What the payments are actually taxed as, why a mortgage usually ends it, and what your heirs give up.
First 1031 exchange? Start with what it defers — and what it doesn’t.
What a 1031 exchange defers — capital gains tax, depreciation recapture, the 3.8% surtax, and state tax on top — plus the four requirements and a side-by-side of the same property sold two ways.
Read →How to fill out a 1031 45-day identification form.
The three identification rules, the two unforgiving deadlines, what makes a notice valid — and a free fillable template.
Read →You lost the property. The IRS may still call it a gain.
Eminent domain, fire, flood: the settlement is measured against your depreciated basis, not what the property was worth. Section 1033, the clocks, and the refund window.
Read →Selling or exchanging a property this year?
A short briefing on the 45-day and 180-day clocks, what qualifies as replacement property, and the debt requirement most sellers miss. Free.
Get the briefing →