Weekend Reading: 7 Ways the New Tax Bill Could Impact Retirement Planning

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
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Weekend Reading

A first look at a major proposed tax bill was just released by the Ways and Means Committee, and it has the power to change a number of things in the retirement planning realm.

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Changes on the horizon: Unlike SECURE Act 2.0, this bill is not aimed at enhancing retirement security. Instead, it’s geared more toward tax revenue restrictions, and past podcast guest, Jamie Hopkins, highlights seven ways these new provisions could impact your second act. Some of them include:

📌Significant increase in Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) with large account and high-income earners: If your combined traditional IRA, Roth IRA and defined contribution accounts exceed $10 million at the end of the prior year, and your taxable income is above $400,000 as a single filer ($450,000 if married filing jointly), you would face a new RMD that is 50 percent of the aggregate amount above $10 million.

📌Roth conversion limitations for high-income earners: Individuals with high taxable income (precisely $400,000 annually for single filers, $450,000 for those married and filing jointly) would be prohibited from doing Roth IRA conversions in the future.

📌Limitation on certain investments in IRAs: While certain types of investments are not permitted in an IRA, this bill would add to the list. It would eliminate anything requiring the IRA owner to obtain a certification, meet a minimum asset level or obtain a certain level of education.

📌Marriage penalty: Individuals who are married and file jointly for taxes, and who have a combined income of $450,000/annually or more, would hit the highest tax bracket at 39.6 percent. This would inevitably leave some with potentially tens of thousands of dollars less in retirement savings.

My thoughts: The biggest takeaway here has to be that in the bill’s current form, the promise to increase taxes on the rich is being followed through, and will largely leave your average American unscathed.