If you turned 73 last year and haven't touched your retirement account yet, the IRS isn't knocking on your door today—but the calendar is tighter than most people think.
Required minimum distributions, or RMDs, force you to start pulling money out of traditional IRAs and 401(k)s once you hit a certain age, whether you need the cash or not.
Now it's 73, and under current law it jumps to 75 in 2033.
That moving target has left a lot of savers confused about when their first withdrawal is actually due—and confusion here gets expensive fast.
Here's the part that catches people: your first RMD can be delayed until April 1 of the year *after* you turn 73.
But take it, and you'll owe two withdrawals in the same calendar year—the delayed one plus the current one.
That can push you into a higher tax bracket and inflate your Medicare premiums two years later.
The "grace period" is really a trap dressed as a favor.
Miss a deadline entirely and the penalty is brutal: 25% of the amount you should have withdrawn, dropping to 10% if you fix it quickly.
On a $40,000 missed distribution, that's up to $10,000 gone for a paperwork slip.
The financial industry loves to talk up RMDs because it nudges money out of tax-deferred accounts and into taxable ones—often straight into a brokerage product they manage.
You should assume any "RMD specialist" pitching you a rollover has a fee somewhere in the fine print.
You can satisfy RMDs across multiple IRAs with one combined withdrawal, but 401(k)s must each be handled separately.
Roth IRAs have no lifetime RMDs for the original owner—one reason they're popular in estate planning.
And if you're still working past 73, a current employer's 401(k) may be exempt, but that exception rarely covers IRAs.
If you're charitably inclined, a qualified charitable distribution lets you send up to $105,000 (indexed) straight to charity and count it toward your RMD—keeping it out of your taxable income entirely.
That's one of the few genuinely clean breaks left.
Withdrawing in a down market locks in losses.
Withdrawing a lump sum in December can spike your tax bill.
Many advisors split withdrawals across the year, but there's no universal right answer—only your numbers.
The bottom line: this isn't free money, and it isn't optional.
It's the government collecting on decades of deferred taxes, and the rules reward people who plan ahead and punish those who assume the IRS will remind them.
Worth saying plainly: the RMD system exists to close a tax loophole, not to help you.
Anyone framing it as a benefit—especially someone selling you a product to "handle" it—deserves a hard look at their incentives.
Final Thoughts
Your job is to know your date, do the math, and not let a calendar you didn't set cost you five figures.