Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you reach age 71 or so you have a required minimum distribution that is calculated based on your life expectancy. This means you have to use some of your principal and not just leave it for your heirs.

Not a smart comment. You have to take it out of a tax deferred account to a taxable account but you don’t have to spend (other than the taxes) you can still leave to your heirs.

+1. Simply take the withdrawal and reinvest in taxable account.

Right now a 16m account in just Mm/cd/treasuries could get you over 1M per year in earnings. The PP won’t need to touch their principal to get 459k per year

Why the hell would I leave it to my kids?

Anonymous wrote:Once you hit the RMD age, you will be forced to out increasing larger withdrawals that will exceed 4% over time.

You could be forced to withdrawal money from tax-deferred accounts, but even if it is over 4% you don't have to spend it. Just reinvest it.

That said, I do agree that what you have to worry about is how much tax you have to pay. So if you're planning for 20K/year in taxes, and suddenly you have to take out enough in RMDs that it bumps you up into a higher tax bracket, then that could be a problem.

This might be what you were referring to, but is a slightly different point.