Multi-Account Withdrawal Map

How many accounts are you supposed to pull from in retirement, and in what order? Most affluent households have five or six, taxable brokerage, traditional IRA, Roth, an old 401(k), maybe an HSA and a pension, and no map for which feeds the paycheck when. That scatter is where lifetime taxes quietly leak. Build the map once and you control the tax bill instead of letting it control you. Work through these steps in order.

• List every account and its tax treatment. Group them into three: taxable (brokerage, savings), tax-deferred (traditional IRA, 401(k)), and tax-free (Roth, HSA for medical). The treatment, not the balance, drives the order.

• Set your annual spending target first. Decide what your portfolio actually has to deliver this year after Social Security and any pension. The withdrawal map serves that number, not the other way around.

• Pin down the non-negotiables. Note your required minimum distributions, which begin at 73 or 75 depending on your birth year. RMDs come out whether you want them or not, so they’re the floor every other withdrawal stacks on.

• Map the cheap-bracket room. Find how much income you can recognize before the next threshold. For 2026 a married couple stays in the 12% bracket on taxable income up to $24,800 and the 22% bracket up to $100,800. Unused low-bracket room is money left on the table.

• Fill that room on purpose, usually with Roth conversions. In low-income years, especially your 60s before RMDs, convert traditional dollars at cheap rates to shrink the future forced withdrawal.

• Fund spending in the right sequence. Lean on taxable accounts for cash flow and gain harvesting, convert tax-deferred deliberately, and hold the Roth as a release valve. The full logic is in the tax-efficient withdrawal order.

• Protect the cliffs. Before any large withdrawal, check it against the lines that trigger more Social Security taxation, the jump from 0% to 15% capital gains, and IRMAA, the income-based Medicare surcharge that runs on a two-year lookback (MAGI over $218,000 married, $109,000 single for 2026).

• Carry a cash buffer so the map survives a crash. Hold one to three years of spending in safe money so a down market never forces you to sell stocks for groceries.

• Use the right accounts for charity and heirs. Once RMD-eligible, a Qualified Charitable Distribution sends IRA money straight to charity and keeps it off your return ($111,000 limit for 2026). Leave appreciated taxable assets for the step-up in basis where legacy matters.

• Redraw the map every year. Income, markets, and the cliffs all move. A withdrawal map isn’t a one-time setup, it’s a yearly decision about how much income to recognize before the next threshold.

Build this once and the scattered accounts become a single sequence working for you. The retiree without a map pays whatever tax the autopilot hands them. The one with a map decides.