THE TOUGH PART COMES last.
Saving for retirement is pretty straightforward: You sock away as much as you can, favor stock funds, diversify broadly, keep investment costs low and make the most of tax-advantaged retirement accounts. By contrast, paying for retirement can involve mind-boggling complexity—and a big reason is the tax code.
The good news: Once you quit the workforce, you have a fair amount of control over your annual tax bill, especially if you aren’t yet taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) from your traditional retirement accounts,

As a recent retiree who is using my cash reserves to cross my two-year “bridge” to my SS claiming date, I need to decide from which of my tax-free accounts I should withdraw to supplement our living expenses as I move into 2025. I will have used up my taxable account funds by the end of 2024.
Given our household’s low taxable income during this period I have been doing strategic (fill up the tax bracket,

Well, it’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the holiday decorations and music in the stores, although it’s certainly that time of year as well. I’m talking about looking at this year’s tax picture and what actions one might take before the year ends.
There are several items that pop to mind for many people – optimizing giving to charity, making gifts to family, contributing to IRAs (consider doing this earlier!), and others.

As we all know, the Social Security trust is being depleted. The most often year mentioned is 2033, but that could change. The reduction in current benefits is projected at 21% – a hefty cut for most people, especially those relying heavily or totally on Social Security income.
Why are we in this mess? Simply because funding of Social Security has been inadequate for many years and for just as long one Congress after another has ignored the trustees pleas to take action sooner rather than later.

I posted the following as a comment on another forum topic, but I think maybe it merits a stand-alone conversation. In my time as a tax preparer I witnessed at least a dozen instances where large refunds were held up either by the IRS or the state.
I have mentioned this cautionary warning before regarding over withholding. A client had about $8k withheld from a $10k distribution. Her situation changed one year and she was due an $8k tax refund.

Here are some proposals I’ve seen for fixing Social Security.
Remove the income cap on the payroll tax. Currently at $168.600, this would have people and their employer, as well as self-employed folks pay the tax on all of their income. It would not include any commensurate increase in their benefits. While I’ve never had the problem of earning over the income cap, it doesn’t seem entirely fare to me to put all of the load these people.

Hello,
I have been reading here for a while, and enjoying the conversations. I am hoping some experts can weigh in here.
I am 58 years old and employed at a nonprofit org. I have recently been promoted and am earning a comfortable amount. I have already maxed out my 403b contributions (403b is the nonprofit equivalent of the 401k).
I asked my employer if we have a Roth IRA contribution option and we don’t.
My question is: can I contribute to a Roth IRA on my own?

I’m reading frequently these days about Roth conversions and Required Minimum Distribution tax bombs.  Since I couldn’t know my own future tax rates and situation in advance, I have attempted throughout my working years to balance tax-deferred and tax-exempt.  I find myself close to retirement with the following breakdown:
45% tax-deferred (Traditional IRA, 401k, etc)
12% taxable (brokerage, savings, etc)
43% tax-exempt (Roth IRA, Roth 401k, HSA)
I haven’t done any kind of analysis to see if Roth conversions will be advantageous to me at some point,

I started listing the various taxes Americans pay, but gave up rather quickly. It’s a long list and some of them are a bit obscure like hotel room taxes, taxes on phone bills, a tax on scrapped tires and such. Of course there are Social Security and Medicare taxes as well. I paid $98,080 in Medicare taxes during my working life – one of those big scary numbers. 😎
What the US doesn’t have is Value Added Tax (VAT) –

DEATH AND TAXES are inevitable—and, as I keep getting reminded, also inextricably entwined.
I’m not so fortunate that I need worry about federal estate taxes. That privilege belongs to those who die with $13.61 million in 2024. But that doesn’t mean the taxman isn’t hovering over my demise, raising a host of lesser issues.
Paying the piper. Over the past few years, my focus has been on making big Roth conversions while staying within the 24% federal income-tax bracket.

The Social Security trust fund is a foolish piece of accounting nonsense—and the blathering about how the trust fund is running out of money is just a gigantic distraction from the Social Security system’s fundamental problem. To understand why, ask yourself two questions.
First, when the trust fund cashes in some of the special Treasury bonds it holds, where does the Treasury Department get the money to buy back those bonds? The same place that money comes from to fund all government operations: by levying taxes and by issuing more debt.

If you own a traditional IRA that has nondeductible and deductible contributions as well as earnings and you also have an employer sponsored tax deferred account like a 401(k) or Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) that will accept an IRA rollover, then here’s a way to do a tax-free Roth conversion. I learned about this maneuver from a comment to my comment on a prior HD article. It’s pretty slick although a little complicated, so I thought it deserved to be its own HD article.

I read here on HD and regularly elsewhere about Roth conversions. I never did one mainly because they weren’t available until after I retired at 67. 
My questions are:
is there an age when doing the FIRST conversion for the FIRST Roth account is no longer prudent —- and if a conversion is made is it typical to pay tax taxes from the account being converted or other sources?

There has been a plethora of back and forth in the HD Forum recently about what constitutes income. I hesitate to wade into these stormy seas. But what the heck. I wrote an article a while ago that discussed the various meanings of income that the tax code uses.  Head there if you want a discussion of Gross income, Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), Modified AGI, Taxable income, and Combined income.
Right off the bat I’ll state that this argument will never be won.

You betcha, but also necessary – unless you have a better idea to generate income for the Social Security and Medicare trusts.
You and I did not pay for our Social Security benefits. In the aggregate all beneficiaries have paid for about 15% of benefits received. I did not contribute toward my pension so it’s fully taxable. If I had contributed on an after-tax basis that portion would not be taxed. 
I looked at the total I paid in FICA taxes as well as what my employers paid from 1959 until I retired in 2010.