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Retirement Withdrawal Order Worksheet
$9.99Which account to draw first, priced rather than asserted: what the next thousand dollars costs from a taxable account, a traditional one, a Roth and an HSA, side by side on your own rates. Names the three cliffs a withdrawal can push you over without warning — the IRMAA Medicare surcharge assessed on your income from two years ago, the provisional-income threshold that makes Social Security taxable, and the capital-gains 0% ceiling — and deliberately leaves their figures blank rather than hardcoding thresholds that change annually. Counts the years between now and your RMD start age, because that window is where the largest decision in the whole worksheet lives.
Format: Excel (.xlsx)
Look inside
Preview only — scroll to read it. The file you download is fully editable.
| Retirement Withdrawal Order Worksheet | ||
| Which account you draw from first is the part of a retirement plan you can still change, and it is worth more than most people expect. Fill the blue cells; the sheet prices the year, shows what the next dollar costs from each account, and flags the three thresholds a withdrawal can push you over wit… | ||
| Part 1 — What you have | ||
| Taxable / brokerage balance | 420000 | Already-taxed money. Only the GAIN is taxed when you sell, and often at long-term capital gains rates rather than ordinary ones. |
| of which is unrealised gain | 165000 | What you would owe tax on if you sold everything today. |
| Traditional / pre-tax balance (401k, 403b, IRA) | 780000 | Never taxed yet. Every dollar out is ordinary income, and this is the balance RMDs are computed on. |
| Roth balance | 190000 | Already taxed, grows tax-free, and qualified withdrawals are not income at all — which is why it does not push you over any threshold below. |
| HSA balance | 62000 | The only account that is untaxed going in AND coming out, for qualified medical costs. Usually the LAST thing to spend. |
| Total | ƒx | |
| Part 2 — This year | ||
| Your age at year end | 68 | |
| Spouse's age at year end, if any | 66 | |
| Social Security you will receive | 0 | Gross, before any Medicare premium is deducted from it. |
| Pension income | 22000 | |
| Other ordinary income (part-time work, interest, rents) | 4000 | |
| Spending you need to fund this year | 78000 | After tax. This is the number the withdrawals have to reach. |
| Your federal marginal rate (%) | 22 | From last year's return, or from calculatorbystate.com's effective-vs-marginal calculator. |
| Your state's rate on retirement income (%) | 3.5 | NOT the headline rate. Twenty states charge nothing on a typical retirement income; several exclude pensions entirely or above an age. Use the state retirement tax calculator, or the state-comparison workbook. |
| Your long-term capital gains rate (%) | 0 | Frequently 0% for a retiree with modest income, which is what makes the taxable account so cheap to draw early. Check yours before assuming 15%. |
| Part 3 — What the next dollar costs, by account | ||
| This is the whole decision in one table. The cheapest dollar is not always the one you reach for first — see Part 5. | ||
| Draw from | Tax on the next $1,000 | Why |
| Roth | ƒx | Qualified withdrawals are not income. Nothing to tax, and nothing to push you over a threshold. |
| Taxable — return of your own basis | ƒx | You already paid tax on this. Only the gain is taxable. |
| Taxable — long-term gain | ƒx | Held over a year. Taxed at the capital gains rate in row 21, not at your ordinary rate. |
| Traditional / pre-tax | ƒx | Ordinary income, federal and state. The most expensive dollar for most people. |
| HSA — qualified medical | ƒx | Untaxed going in and coming out. Spend this last unless the money is needed for care now. |
| HSA — non-medical, under 65 | ƒx | Ordinary income PLUS a 20% penalty. Almost never right. |
| Part 4 — The three thresholds a withdrawal can push you over | ||
| None of these is a tax bracket, and all three are cliffs rather than slopes: one dollar of extra income can cost hundreds or thousands. Fill in the ones that apply to you from current-year figures — they change annually and this worksheet deliberately does not hardcode them. | ||
| IRMAA — Medicare premium surcharge | Based on your income from TWO years ago. Crossing a bracket by $1 raises the premium for the whole year, for both Part B and Part D, per person. | |
| My income two years ago | 118000 | The figure IRMAA is actually assessed on. |
| Next IRMAA bracket starts at | 133000 | From the current year's published brackets. |
| Headroom before I cross it | ƒx | How much more income you can take this year before the Medicare premium steps up. |
| Social Security taxability threshold | Up to 85% of your benefit becomes taxable above a provisional-income threshold. A traditional withdrawal raises provisional income; a Roth one does not. | |
| Provisional income this year | 96000 | Roughly: AGI + tax-exempt interest + half your Social Security. |
| Capital gains 0% rate ceiling | Below it, long-term gains are taxed at nothing. An ordinary withdrawal that pushes taxable income over it can cost far more than the withdrawal itself. | |
| Taxable income this year | 71000 | |
| Part 5 — The order most people should use, and when not to | ||
| THE CONVENTIONAL ORDER IS TAXABLE, THEN TRADITIONAL, THEN ROTH. It defers the ordinary income longest and leaves the tax-free money growing. It is a reasonable default and it is not always right. | ||
| Draw traditional EARLIER if you have a low-income gap before RMDs start | ||
| Between retiring and age 73 or 75, many people have unusually low income. Filling the low brackets with traditional withdrawals — or converting to Roth — in those years is frequently worth more than any other move in this worksheet, because the same money would otherwise come out later at a higher r… | ||
| Draw Roth EARLIER if a withdrawal would cross an IRMAA bracket | ||
| A Roth dollar is invisible to every threshold in Part 4. Using it to stay under a cliff for one year can be worth more than the tax it saves. | ||
| Draw taxable EARLIER if your capital gains rate is 0% | ||
| Realising gains at nothing is the cheapest money available, and the ceiling is generous for a retiree with modest ordinary income. It also resets your basis upward for free. | ||
| Do not spend the HSA on anything but care | ||
| It is the only triple-tax-free account. If you can pay medical costs from elsewhere, keep the receipts and reimburse yourself from it years later — the rules do not require you to claim in the year you spent. | ||
| Reconsider everything the year a spouse dies | ||
| The survivor files single, on brackets roughly half as wide, frequently with most of the same income. It is the single largest and least anticipated rate rise in retirement. | ||
| Part 6 — Required minimum distributions |
Preview shows the first 60 rows. The full worksheet continues for 43 more — the complete worksheet is in the download.
This template is general information, not financial, legal, or tax advice.