Tax-Smart Retirement Income Strategies Beat Static Rules
Jennifer Hutchins, chief investment officer, Retirement and Investment Solutions at CBIZ, discusses designing more tax-efficient retirement income and reducing early-retirement sequence-of-returns risk by shifting from static withdrawal rules to flexible, guardrail-based strategies.
Methods such as the Guyton-Klinger method and Vanguard’s ceilings-and-floors approach can support adjustable income and potentially raise the base withdrawal rate above 5%.
Hutchins outlines a practical distribution sequencing playbook: default to drawing from taxable assets before tax-deferred accounts, then “break the rule” in low-income years by filling lower brackets with IRA withdrawals or preserving highly appreciated taxable positions intended for a step-up in basis.
A decision-tree approach also considers RMD management, heirs’ tax brackets, Roth usage and future medical expenses, emphasizing the advisor’s role in engineering a reliable paycheck rather than presenting portfolios.
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