With the exception of the COVID-19 blip over the last two years, people are living longer and the IRS has changed the rules on Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) on IRA’s, 401(k)’s and 403(b)’s. RMDs were suspended for 2020 because of COVID, but they are back. You don’t have to take RMDs from Roth IRAs, but you do from non-Roth’s. The 2019 Secure Act raised to 72 the age at which RMD’s kick in, up from 70.5 years, but not for people who were already taking RMDs in 2019. Starting in 2022, many people will have RMD’s that are about 6-7% smaller than they would have been under the IRS’s old life expectancy tables. Speak to your tax accountant because the rules have become very complex (See AARP Bulletin, December 2021, page 30).
