Bogleheads.org

I appreciate that you posted this additional information, although still more information on expenses, and the rest of the family portfolio, is necessary. At this point you're going to get too much conflicting information and advice for you to make much use of any of it. For example some responses are saying the portfolio is too complex, and I understand that point, but it's a managed account so the complexity isn't directly affecting anyone but the person managing it. I don't even know offhand how many funds I have in my own accounts... 30? I don't find it complex at all. Some day I probably will. At one point in this thread there was a lot of outrage over the front load for the Pimco fund, but then it turned out there was no front load. I...

I do not understand why you would do Roth conversions of money you would need within five years when you are over the age of 59.5. Just take a distribution from your traditional IRA. There are lots of reasons; just one example: the market might have dropped due to some catastrophic event, and you're confident (whatever...) that it will recover within a few years. You want to capture the benefit without moving to a taxable account where if you withdraw subsequently you'll take a capital gains hit in addition to paying taxes on the withdrawal. Hopefully DW will not need the funds before 5 years, but I want to know what the consequences would be. Another reason for the conversion, is that it will give me breathing room when I begin taking my ...

I do not understand why you would do Roth conversions of money you would need within five years when you are over the age of 59.5. Just take a distribution from your traditional IRA. There are lots of reasons; just one example: the market might have dropped due to some catastrophic event, and you're confident (whatever...) that it will recover within a few years. You want to capture the benefit without moving to a taxable account where if you withdraw subsequently you'll take a capital gains hit in addition to paying taxes on the withdrawal. Hopefully DW will not need the funds before 5 years, but I want to know what the consequences would be. Another reason for the conversion, is that it will give me breathing room when I begin taking my ...

toddthebod wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:37 pm I do not understand why you would do Roth conversions of money you would need within five years when you are over the age of 59.5. Just take a distribution from your traditional IRA.

There are lots of reasons; just one example: the market might have dropped due to some catastrophic event, and you're confident (whatever...) that it will recover within a few years. You want to capture the benefit without moving to a taxable account where if you withdraw subsequently you'll take a capital gains hit in addition to paying taxes on the withdrawal.

CRC_Volunteer wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:54 pm I want to thank everyone for the replies. This looks quite doable.

Well that's nice but I'm still confused. I just googled and found this, which obviously must be true since it came from the internet:

The 5-year rule on Roth conversions requires you to wait five years before withdrawing any converted balances — contributions or earnings — regardless of your age. If you take money out before the five years is up, you'll have to pay a 10% penalty when you file your tax return.

That was from the era when I first looked into this, the end of 2020. Has something changed?

CRC_Volunteer wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:31 pm DW is 76 and we are currently doing RMD's. A Roth has not been created and as she has health issues, I may need the money before the 5 year waiting period has elapsed. However, if I can access the principle without heartburn, this could be doable.

Depends on whether paying a 10% penalty would constitute heartburn. I don't think it matters if there is an existing Roth or not.

sksbog wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:24 pm Hello,

we have booked a cruise from port of miami. Now wondering where to stay for 2 nights before the cruise?
Would be nice,if they have shuttle to the port of miami to catch the cruise

Thanks
Don

When I did this last fall there was no hotel for which the cost of the hotel plus shuttle wasn't cheaper than any place offering a free shuttle, but I didn't look exhaustively. The hotel I used... I don't even remember what it was, one of the larger chains. They had a sign-up for a (non-free) shuttle at the front desk; probably every hotel does. If arriving two nights early I might rent a car and go somewhere I wanted, then just take a shuttle from the airport. Or Uber.

I am looking at doing a Roth conversion for DW. Her IRA is smaller than mine and I could accomplish the conversion over a 3 year period. Per a (much) earlier post, someone mentioned that the 5 year waiting period only applied to the gains of the fund. The principle amount, since the taxes were already paid, could be available immediately. I just want to verify this before I start this process. Roth IRA contributions may be withdrawn at any time for any reason without tax or penalty. The rest has a specific order. See Note 2 for the chart. Contributions can; conversions I'm not sure. Just wanted to clarify that you're not saying the OP can withdraw without penalty. Although the chart differentiates, I think some people would equate contribu...

There are something like 5 different 5-year rules related to IRAs. I'm not an expert but I believe there is a penalty for any conversion money (amount you convert or earnings on it) withdrawn within 5 years from Jan 1 of the year you do a conversion. Or at least there was at some point when I looked into it. I assume that automatically the amounts you remove are FIFO and not for example fund-specific within the Roth IRA but someone else will confirm or deny.

I would convert the one I want to hold in Roth IRA - the stock fund - and leave the money market in tIRA. That leaves your asset allocation unchanged. This takes everything into account. It points out that whatever you take out of the tIRA, you simply buy when the money hits your Roth. AA remains the same. Funds invested remain the same. Nothing changed from an AA perspective. You will get money somewhere to pay the tax. If you don't have the money and have to take some from the funds you'd be converting, well, then that's a completely different question. I think in the majority of cases conversions do have an impact due to having to either take money from the conversion itself, or incur capital gains to pay from taxable. There is just not...

dokeeffe wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 2:57 pm Am I correct that she could put her $3,000+ wages in a Roth (how about the 1099-NEC earnings)?

I think a Roth would be good and it would be nice if you at least matched her contributions, but try to resist the urge to encourage her in the habit of calculating the Roth contribution (or other tax-related limits) down the last cent to maximize her contribution, or especially the habit of contributing in anticipation of future earnings during a year, as so many people here do.

Macaroni2629 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 2:03 pm

ralph124cf wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 1:32 pm While I agree that $8k is a very reasonable for good management of a $2M portfolio, I would be willing to bet a goodly sum that the $8k is not the full story. There are many ways for a financial planner to legally extract multiples of that $8k from your mother's portfolio.

Ralph

Yeah I think so too.

I think this is likely, but not certain, and that's why I was disappointed in the lack of analysis of the investments and other services provided. If the OP had found a 2% average expense ratio or something like that outrageous, that would have been more understandable than an $8k fee for managing what could be 8-figures by now (given "several million" twenty years ago.)

It seems like when a bunch of Vanguard funds moved from annual to quarterly dividends a few years ago there was some mention (from Vanguard) of the reason, but I don't remember now.

There is not a particular reason to convert all of a traditional IRA. They can be very handy if OP needs Long Term Care as withdrawals for that would be tax deductible. If OP chooses to give some in QCDs, those are a possibility after age 70.5. If there is a charity that will get a bequest, that's a good account to choose as they don't have to pay tax. If the account can actually be depleted in one year in the 32% bracket, then RMDs are not going to be too onerous. So OP needs to look at the situation and model it to see if there is a reason to conversions at all, my guess is no. Unless there is a specific short term hurdle like an FPL multiple to stay below, it is not generally true that folks should put the higher returning asset in Roth...

ekid wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 1:38 pm I don't think you paint vinyl. The entire point of it is to stop that.

But it is sold by the "square" (100 square feet) and I think 2 squares in the same box. Probably not likely to find it in smaller quantity.

But you can paint vinyl with the proper paint; I've done that. Of course you don't paint new vinyl siding but the issue is matching after aging. It's probably like with my white car; after time the non-metal parts (although also painted, but with different materials) are a different white than the metal parts, although the two different finishes started out the same (to my eye at least) white.

Our house is ~27 years old, with white vinyl siding. I'd like to get a couple pieces of extra siding to match, to replace damaged/cut pieces. (Maybe 12' in all). I suppose a PERFECT replacement match after ~27 years may be difficult, but I'd accept pretty close (good to the 5-15 foot eyesight range). I don't think big box HW stores (Lowe's, Home Depot) carry much siding, in-store (maybe you can order it?) I don't want a full residing job or a pushy siding salesman. What's the best kind of store to buy a piece or two, especially one that's likely to have a range, in-store, that I can look at and hopefully find a near-match? Maybe try other building supply stores? Some building supply wholesalers might not sell to consumers of course. I woul...

As you know you can't actually earn a CFP without industry work experience as far as I know, but you mean take the coursework I assume. If you want to do that for hobby value I'm sure you'll learn some things and hopefully enjoy the process, and hopefully feel fulfilled etc. If you're doing it to manage your parents' finances that's like attending medical school so you can clean your kid's ears. Thank you for this feedback. So how do you suggest learning to help manage my parents' finances? Honestly the fact that you believed $8k/yr for a CFP to manage millions of dollars was an outrageous amount was somewhat of a red flag to me that you're not at a stage where the next step would be completing a CFP program. There's never any harm in lear...

InMyDreams wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 11:42 am My father, who had always managed his own accounts, turned things over to a PAS advisor for the last ~8 yrs of his life. Neither he nor family regretted it. I think he was grandfathered in to retaining a personal relationship with an advisor.

I'm not sure this would work as well now with not having a single PAS adviser.

cadzan wrote: ↑Sat Apr 01, 2023 11:42 am I will be doing a Roth conversion in 2023. I have equal amounts in VTSAX and VMFXX. Not sure which is the better choice for the conversion. Can't convert both as that would put me in the 32% bracket as well as raise my IRMAA parts B & D by what I consider an excessive amount. Any opinions? Thanks.

Please add fund names to your original post. Yes in this case a lot of us know the symbols you typed, but occasionally in the past people have been off by one character and it's changed the answers completely.

Anyway the "correct" answer is that the fund with the higher expected return going forward should be converted first. Didn't work out for me but maybe it will for you.

ModifiedDuration wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:34 pm

tibbitts wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:51 pm As you know you can't actually earn a CFP without industry work experience as far as I know, but you mean take the coursework I assume. If you want to do that for hobby value I'm sure you'll learn some things and hopefully enjoy the process, and hopefully feel fulfilled etc. If you're doing it to manage your parents' finances that's like attending medical school so you can clean your kid's ears.

The exam can be taken without the required work experience.

You are correct that you can’t then get the actual CFP designation without the required work experience.

Exactly, I just wanted to make sure the OP understood that he wouldn't be credentialed as a CFP, regardless of successfully completing classes and exams.

As you know you can't actually earn a CFP without industry work experience as far as I know, but you mean take the coursework I assume. If you want to do that for hobby value I'm sure you'll learn some things and hopefully enjoy the process, and hopefully feel fulfilled etc. If you're doing it to manage your parents' finances that's like attending medical school so you can clean your kid's ears.

I defer taxes, although you have to be aware that you could end up with a bit of a tax bomb at the worst possible time, depending on your age.

However I've never thought about annual reporting, and if you go that route, I don't know whether or how the redemption penalty factors in with regard to accrual. So you'd want to check into that.

Sorry another question; how much can money can I convert from traditional to Roth total to stay within the 24% tax bracket? You might want to use some maximum marginal tax rate instead of a tax bracket boundary for your limit. Those may or may not be the same thing. See the Roth IRA conversion wiki, and the Worth pushing through the Social Security hump and/or IRMAA cliffs? section for more. Does that make sense? I think the OP and most of us think of "bracket" as synonymous with "marginal rate" when things like state tax, NIIT and IRMAA etc. aren't involved. For my state and some others brackets are much simpler above a very low income limit, so if you have almost any income at all you just add a fixed percentage to th...

Macaroni2629 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:34 am Do I need to make the tax payment now, or can I structure it in 4 quarterly payments?

Do you have safe harbor from last year?

Macaroni2629 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:20 am Sorry another question; how much can money can I convert from traditional to Roth totalto stay within the 24% tax bracket?

Is the math like this:

For single people, max income for 24% tax bracket is about $170k

1) index funds: $35k

2) $170k - $35k = $135k?

I'm confused about standard deductions and how that plays into this?

You can factor in the standard deduction but you have to determine if you have any cliffs involved. You don't have IRMAA at your age for example so that's one thing you don't have to worry about. Anyway if you don't have cliffs don't get too hung up over exact amounts because it's not a huge problem if you go under or over a little; it's just not important to be that precise.

Try scenarios using free Extended Optimal Retirement Planner tool on I-orp.com website. As a base case try no conversions, then try to top of expected marginal tax bracket and another to next tax bracket. The takeaways I found were lower lifetime taxes and later years savings on IRMAA Medicare premiums. It is easy to run several scenarios while the tool is open so you can change one parameter at a time to see how this changes outcomes. There are some tricks/limitations to i-ORP that you have to be careful of. For example, if you do the recommended and keep usually higher-earning investments like equities in your Roth, and if tell i-ORP that (vs. that you have similar expected returns in both accounts), it's going to even more seriously fro...

Owlette678 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:37 am The awkward thing is that I can’t check vintages or any other granular details since fidelity holds this TIAA product and I have no account with TIAA. Really wish I had more control of the information but I very much appreciate your help!

Other people have commented on limited access to TIAA information due to an employer plan held elsewhere, but I don't remember anyone finding a solution.

Either spending the IRA money, or converting it to Roth if you can afford the additional income taxes are two options to help drain the IRA. The other thing you can consider doing is making the IRA investments more conservative (to slow the growth) if your asset allocation isn't appropriate. I'd guess the same taxes will be due regardless of conversion or spending, and the OP seems to have taxable money to pay them without incurring significant capital gains. Ironically I did move my own deferred money to more conservative investments, which is best in theory, but ever since then my conservative investments have significantly outperformed everything else. So that backfired on me. Hopefully your conservative investments will start pulling t...

So I am a month in to my exchange and did not consider the fact that my paycheck contributions are still going to my TIAA product within my fidelity 403b, even while the larger amount of cash that was exchanged sits in a fidelity money market fund. So now I have two new contributions in March of a few hundred dollars. Will this screw up my 120 day exchange plan? Are these new contributions getting the lower blended interest rate since they bought TIAA within 120 days? I don’t understand how TIAA would recognize these as new contributions vs an early re-exchange back into TIAA from the money market. Same question can be asked about any protated interest that is paid back into the TIAA account after an exchange. I worry that I need to exchan...

Owlette678 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 7:38 am Update: Sold my entire TIAA fund and exchanged into MMF @4.5%. No problem. Will buy back in 120 days assuming TIAA rate > MMF rate.

I would exchange back regardless.

retired@50 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:37 pm Either spending the IRA money, or converting it to Roth if you can afford the additional income taxes are two options to help drain the IRA. The other thing you can consider doing is making the IRA investments more conservative (to slow the growth) if your asset allocation isn't appropriate.

I'd guess the same taxes will be due regardless of conversion or spending, and the OP seems to have taxable money to pay them without incurring significant capital gains.

Ironically I did move my own deferred money to more conservative investments, which is best in theory, but ever since then my conservative investments have significantly outperformed everything else. So that backfired on me.

Try scenarios using free Extended Optimal Retirement Planner tool on I-orp.com website. As a base case try no conversions, then try to top of expected marginal tax bracket and another to next tax bracket. The takeaways I found were lower lifetime taxes and later years savings on IRMAA Medicare premiums. It is easy to run several scenarios while the tool is open so you can change one parameter at a time to see how this changes outcomes. There are some tricks/limitations to i-ORP that you have to be careful of. For example, if you do the recommended and keep usually higher-earning investments like equities in your Roth, and if tell i-ORP that (vs. that you have similar expected returns in both accounts), it's going to even more seriously fro...

I have been thinking about taking some of the income generated in my IRA and using it to reduce spending my taxable dollars prior to collecting SS. I'm 64, my wife is 61. Here's what I'm thinking...this is approximate, but you'll get the idea: 2023 Expenses: $96K forecasted Pension1: $40K net Pension 2: $6K net this year - will be double next year. Spouse's Income: $24K Net (assuming retirement at end of June - this will go away next year) Income - Expenses = 70K-96K = -26K IRA forecasted Income = $40K (currently reinvested) So...I'm wondering if it might be better for me to withdraw some of the IRA income to cover the $26K gap. This would allow me to hold onto my taxable cash for other things we might want to do beyond basic expenses. I r...

nura wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 4:20 pm Isn't equity component of VWELX identical to VDIGX? Is so, the portfolio was 80% VDIGX and 20% Bonds.

No, I don't think it's ever been, or intended to be. But I don't monitor it closely. The equity mandates are certainly not the same from what I recall in the descriptions.

With Fidelity, I was given the name and postal address of the fund manager in another similar situation, but the fund manager's postal mailing address was in the central US, not in Boston. With your Fidelity question, did you receive an answer from the fund manager, and was it what you expected and in acceptable detail? I did receive a lengthy and quite adequate written response from the office of the Fidelity fund manager, not from him but from someone in his area. I was quite pleased. I asked Vanguard today whether the fund manager at Vanguard would tend to respond to questions from fund holders via postal mail. He did not want to say, but I did prevail on him to check with his supervisor I don't want to waste time mailing to a dead lett...

My dad is 72. Between social security, pensions, his RMDs from his IRA, and the standard deduction, my parents are $15,000 below the cutoff between the 12% and 22% tax bracket. My mom is 65. It looks like they'll be $15,000 above the cutoff between the 12% and 22% tax bracket when her RMDs start in 7 years. Should he withdraw an extra $15,000 from his IRA this year (and a similar amount for the next 7 years)? The extra $15,000 would go into a taxable Brokerage account, which would be invested stocks and held indefinitely. This might help offset having to pay 22% instead of 12% tax on some income in 7 years. Brackets are currently set to change, and will for inflation no matter what. So make sure you account for that. You could withdraw, or...

smitcat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 2:32 pm I see it as a longer view and looking at the full picture. Any one year can lead you to a poor conclusion it just means you adjust the next year.

Absolutely you can adjust the next year, but once you make a large conversion, you can't take it back (more so now with the current tax laws.) The difference between good and bad luck when doing large conversions can be dramatic, which is why knowing what I do now I would have better balanced deferred and Roth and taxable while accumulating, to avoid the need for larger conversions.

smitcat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:41 pm I do not find a very large number of folks here donating aggressively, I do not share your observations. Our donations have been 5 figures for years so far.

I think five figures for someone spending mid five figures (okay, maybe spending excluding income taxes on those Roth conversions) is extremely generous. So apparently I'm the only tightwad around here when it comes to donations.

Yes - moderate if you can. But we still find larger conversions to be very likely optimum. Everyone must run their own numbers and various scenarios, and this is when we get to the point where for some reason(s) we cannot assist your situation. I have made large-by-my-standards multi-hundred-thousand-dollar conversions in a single year so I'm not going to argue that they never make sense, although knowing now what markets have done and what interest rates have done and what tax policies have changed so far since I did those, I would have done lower dollar amounts of conversions in a single year, and that would have turned to closer to optimal. But depending on your assumptions you sometimes need large conversions simply to kill the compoun...

Carsson3 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:54 am With Fidelity, I was given the name and postal address of the fund manager in another similar situation, but the fund manager's postal mailing address was in the central US, not in Boston.

With your Fidelity question, did you receive an answer from the fund manager, and was it what you expected and in acceptable detail?

"I would say a lot of people -well, Bogleheads - will end up paying no income taxes on a good portion of deferred amounts under 7-figures.I would say a lot of people -well, Bogleheads - will end up paying no income taxes on a good portion of deferred amounts under 7-figures." No income taxes...in general I do not think so but please share the math. But, if they retire early enough and are able to make enough Roth conversions the number does go up on those paying lower tax rates. Please read past posts on pensions, after tax account valuations, small business owners, and inheritances. There are many reasons why folks with higher incomes and higher savings rates will find 401K's problematic if they retire later. As one example only...

"I would say a lot of people -well, Bogleheads - will end up paying no income taxes on a good portion of deferred amounts under 7-figures.I would say a lot of people -well, Bogleheads - will end up paying no income taxes on a good portion of deferred amounts under 7-figures." No income taxes...in general I do not think so but please share the math. But, if they retire early enough and are able to make enough Roth conversions the number does go up on those paying lower tax rates. Please read past posts on pensions, after tax account valuations, small business owners, and inheritances. There are many reasons why folks with higher incomes and higher savings rates will find 401K's problematic if they retire later. As one example only...

We had numerous advisors over the years - many gave us advice which we began to question in detail much later on in life. We only really began to understand the various possible outcomes when we ran them ourselves, none of our past advisor would ever run more than one or two possible scenarios. You can also donate appreciated equity holdings in after tax accounts if that becomes a preferred goal. Yes about taxable accounts, although the value of appreciated shares is much higher because you can also give them to anybody you want, some of whom may not have to pay any income tax on them. The adviser definitely didn't try as many assumptions as someone could do for their own amusement. I believe his software (I don't know what he was using, i...

Interestingly an adviser's software (I don't know what he was using) didn't recommend conversions when projecting up to about 2.5M in deferred at RMD start, even filing single. I thought that was interesting. Of course with just slightly different ranges of assumptions it could be beaten into submission and made to say anything, as with all modeling software. I would only make my own changes and see the results. I see no reason to rely on one set of variables if i can review the results of a range of possible outcomes and see the results from lows to highs. IMHO - it takes a lot more than just slightly different assumptions to change the outcomes. $2.5 million at retire is enormous for a single based on what we have seen so far (admittedly...

I would look closely at that $1.5M in deferred by modeling as well - RMD's can be quite interesting over the years dependent upon what any of the other accounts look like (Taxable and Roth) and the totality of goals. Interestingly an adviser's software (I don't know what he was using) didn't recommend conversions when projecting up to about 2.5M in deferred at RMD start, even filing single. I thought that was interesting. Of course with just slightly different ranges of assumptions it could be beaten into submission and made to say anything, as with all modeling software. I would only make my own changes and see the results. I see no reason to rely on one set of variables if i can review the results of a range of possible outcomes and see ...

That two-fund portfolio has slightly underperformed a total market fund since 82 (when VDIGX was introduced). Some years total market won, some years those funds won. https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&timePeriod=4&startYear=1985&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&leverageType=0&leverageRatio=0.0&debtAmount=0&debtInterest=0.0&maintenanceMargin=25.0&leveragedBenchmark=false&reinvestDividends=true&showYield=fals...

The following has been happening to me over and over for a year or more. I ask a someone at Vanguard a challenging question about a Vanguard bond fund, challenging because bonds are more complex than stocks. The person I reach states that I need to talk to Fixed Income. I contact Fixed Income, and I am told that they do not address questions involving mutual funds. So, I again contact Investments and tell the person that Fixed Income does not address funds. After a long wait, I get no material response at all. There are two problems here: (1) the Investment support contacts never realize that Fixed Income personnel will not address mutual funds, and (2) Vanguard personnel in Investments cannot address many questions about their own bond fu...

I would look closely at that $1.5M in deferred by modeling as well - RMD's can be quite interesting over the years dependent upon what any of the other accounts look like (Taxable and Roth) and the totality of goals. Interestingly an adviser's software (I don't know what he was using) didn't recommend conversions when projecting up to about 2.5M in deferred at RMD start, even filing single. I thought that was interesting. Of course with just slightly different ranges of assumptions it could be beaten into submission and made to say anything, as with all modeling software. I would only make my own changes and see the results. I see no reason to rely on one set of variables if i can review the results of a range of possible outcomes and see ...

I would look closely at that $1.5M in deferred by modeling as well - RMD's can be quite interesting over the years dependent upon what any of the other accounts look like (Taxable and Roth) and the totality of goals. Interestingly an adviser's software (I don't know what he was using) didn't recommend conversions when projecting up to about 2.5M in deferred at RMD start, even filing single. I thought that was interesting. Of course with just slightly different ranges of assumptions it could be beaten into submission and made to say anything, as with all modeling software. I would only make my own changes and see the results. I see no reason to rely on one set of variables if i can review the results of a range of possible outcomes and see ...

I would look closely at that $1.5M in deferred by modeling as well - RMD's can be quite interesting over the years dependent upon what any of the other accounts look like (Taxable and Roth) and the totality of goals. Interestingly an adviser's software (I don't know what he was using) didn't recommend conversions when projecting up to about 2.5M in deferred at RMD start, even filing single. I thought that was interesting. Of course with just slightly different ranges of assumptions it could be beaten into submission and made to say anything, as with all modeling software. I would only make my own changes and see the results. I see no reason to rely on one set of variables if i can review the results of a range of possible outcomes and see ...