Tag: capital gains tax

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Retirement taxes under Biden or Trump

With the U.S. presidential election less than three weeks away, now is a good time to consider how your retirement taxes may change. In this post, we highlight the differences in Biden Vs. Trump plans for retirees.

The 2020 Presidential Election may change your retirement tax planning.
The 2020 Presidential Election may change your retirement tax planning.
Note:  This post has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.

Income Taxes in Retirement

Most retirees face some amount of income tax. Social security benefits, pensions, interest on CDs, and bond coupon payments are just a few sources of that can produce retirement income tax. Any voluntary withdrawals from and IRA or 401(k)s, or taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) can also trigger income tax.

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 established the current seven income tax brackets, with the lowest at 10% and highest at 37%. Both candidates wish to keep these tax cuts in place, which currently plan to lapse after 2025. But, Biden wishes to alter it so that households making more than $400,000 would pay higher taxes by limiting the value of itemized deductions. He also proposes to increase the top tax rate from 37% to 39.6%. For household making less than $400,000, Biden hopes to increase the standard deduction. Doing so should decrease taxable income and, subsequently, decrease taxes owed.

Capital Gains Taxes in Retirement

Current U.S. tax law states that qualified dividends and long-term capital gains from investments held for more than one year are taxed at a lower rate. Excluding the net investment income tax, the maximum rate is 20%. Trump has suggested lowering this rate to 15%. Biden wishes to tax long-term capital gains at income tax rates for households with over $1,000,000 in taxable income. He also plans to eliminate the step-up in cost basis realized by retirees wishing to pass highly appreciated assets to their heirs.

The SECURE Act and your retirement objectives, by DiLellio and Kinsman (2020), Vol 23, Issue 2, The Graziadio Business Review

What doesn’t appear likely to change

There are several areas of retirement taxation that likely won’t change. For instance, I recently published a peer-reviewed article about the SECURE Act. This law passed with broad bipartisan support, delays the onset of RMDs for younger retirees and changes rules for inherited IRAs.

For now, we encourage you to seek out a retirement calculator, like ours at ETFMathGuy, and we wrote about recently, to see what current U.S. tax law means to your retirement plans. We will update our calculator as tax law for retirement income changes.

ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.
ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.
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Excess Retirement Income Now Included In Our Retirement Income Calculator

We just finished upgrades to our optimal retirement income calculator to include the possibility of having excess retirement income. This situation occurs when Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) + other non-discretionary sources of retirement income exceed the retiree’s needed income in current and future retirement years. Indeed, this is a good problem to have! It typically occurs when annual retirement income needs are small relative to all the retiree’s income sources. Retirees in this situation have an extremely low risk of outliving their assets.

Click here to launch the Optimal Retirement Income Calculator by ETFMathGuy.

For example, consider a retiree who needs $100,000 of income in their first year of retirement. What should a retiree do if their RMDs are $40,000, pension and social security benefits are $50,000, and interest + dividends in taxable accounts are $20,000, for a total of $110,000? Note: This $10,000 of excess retirement income occurs without taking voluntary withdrawals from any of their accounts. How should a retiree invest this money to maximize tax efficiency?

Retirement Income Sources

As we show on our updated FAQ page, we included many possible sources of retirement income. To help simplify the model, we previously required dividends and interest in taxable accounts to only satisfy immediate retirement income needs. We make a similar assumption of social security and any pension benefits. Put another way, we wouldn’t re-invest these funds for later use in retirement. Thus, the taxable account maintains a single cost basis from investments made prior to retirement.

What about Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)?

Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) complicate retirement income planning, and represent non-voluntary account withdrawals. They can also produce the unintended consequence of producing excess retirement income, like in the example above.

Tax Efficient Investing of Excess Retirement Income

We upgraded our model with a simple approach to reinvesting excess retirement income that would never be needed by a retiree. As previously advocated by DiLellio and Ostrov (2020) and DeMuth (2020), zero-dividend equity (e.g. stock) investments offer a solution. For example, the largest zero-dividend ETF is the First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (ticker: FDN). By reinvesting excess income into an ETF like this one, no gains during retirement would be realized. So, no taxes are due. Then, the total amount in this investment account can be passed to the retiree’s heirs tax-free thanks to a step-up in cost basis, but excluding estate taxes. Below is an image that shows the new black line to track the account holding the excess income that, in this example, starts in year 7.

In this example, excess retirement income starts in year 7, and is reinvested in a zero-dividend ETF for maximum tax efficiency.
In this example, excess retirement income starts in year 7, and is reinvested in a zero-dividend ETF for maximum tax efficiency.

We hope you find this new enhancement helpful in planning for your retirement! Please stay tuned for future enhancements to our web-based calculator, including evaluating the benefits of municipal bond ETFs, Roth conversions, and automating sensitivity analyses.

ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.
ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.
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Finding your Optimal Retirement Income

We introduced a new feature to ETFMathGuy.com in 2019 to help current and future retirees plan for the future. We have now upgraded it to find optimal retirement income. Fortunately, the calculator still offers answers to the many commonly posed questions for those nearing or currently in retirement.

  • How long will my portfolio support my discretionary and non-discretionary expenses?
  • How much will my heir or favorite charitable organization receive?
  • What will my future tax liabilities look like?

This calculator models income tax, capital gains taxes and other important elements of U.S. tax law relevant to individuals and couples in retirement. However, this model does not represent tax advice, and is for educational purposes only.

Sequencing Withdrawals for Optimal Retirement Income

In the former version of our calculator, we only applied the so-called “Common Rule“. Using values for a hypothetical 60-year old couple with a 20 year retirement horizon, the figure below shows how the couple can achieve $150,000 of annual after-tax retirement income. Notice how this “married filing jointly” couple has a effective 0% income tax bracket, as labeled on the right of the figure, due to use of the standard deduction. In 2020, this value is $24,800. To re-create these results or create your own, please visit our our interactive retirement calculator.

Common Rule withdrawal sequencing leading to a $1,203,938.01 inheritance. optimal retirement income
Common Rule withdrawal sequencing leading to a $1,203,938.01 inheritance.

While the “Common Rule” is widely adopted by financial planners and major discount brokers like Fidelity and Vanguard, it is known to sub-optimal. Why? This rule typically produces very little tax burden in the earlier years of retirement, unless they are triggered by Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). Consequently, later retirement years can see very high income tax to maintain retirement income at acceptable levels. This rule also doesn’t take advantage of the step-up in cost basis realized by the retiree’s heirs.

Optimizing Retirement Income Withdrawal Decisions

The latest version of the retirement income calculator can now optimize withdrawal decisions using an “Optimal Rule“. So, using the same values for the calculator as our previous hypothetical couple, their heir’s inheritance increases by 13.7%, or $165,000. If their heir is a qualifying charitable organization, the inheritance increases by  $335,343.94 or 26.1%. We encourage you to try out your own scenarios to see how you can improve your retirement withdrawal decisions.

Optimal Rule withdrawal sequencing leading to a $1,368,938.05 inheritance, a 13.7% increase. optimal retirement income
Optimal Rule withdrawal sequencing leading to a $1,368,938.05 inheritance, a 13.7% increase.

Plans for the Future

We have plenty of other plans for our retirement calculator. For instance, delaying social security, including tax-free municipal bond interest, and assessing the benefits of a Roth conversion are just a few. If you have any thoughts of what you would like to see, please send us your feedback!

ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.
ETFMathGuy is a subscription-based education service for investors interested in using commission-free ETFs in efficient portfolios.