Thanks, Celia, you ask good questions and are right about Roth advantages.What does this mean? Every dollar withdrawn from a tax-deferred account will be taxed as regular income (like wages, not like capital gains or other accounts with a tax advantage). Is this money possibly in an annuity within the 403b?The 403B will not be rolled over to an IRA elsewhere as the withdrawals have a particular tax advantage during my lifetime in this Guidestone account.I was going to recommend you look at your entire portfolio as a whole, including spouse's accounts, if applicable. Your listed Asset Allocation sounds reasonable but you can have the same AA (and it is recommended) to have bonds and money market in tax-deferred, stock funds in Roth, and international and everything else in Taxable. (Of course, the current space you have in each asset class [tax-deferred, Roth, Taxable] will not match the space in the existing accounts, but you could just move things the best you can by buying and selling.) This makes your portfolio more tax-efficient. The way it is now is probably giving you a bigger tax bill since you may have let the tax-deferred accounts grow too fast. Wouldn't it had been better if that growth was growing tax-free in Roth instead?Not posting total portfolio assets in all accounts, as I am happy with overall AA, which are primarily low cost ETF's in our IRAs/CMAYour "biggest winner" could have been in Roth where you would never have to sell it during your lifetime. I just don't see why you hold the assets you have in the accounts you have. You could have had the same holdings but made things more tax-efficient. See:Just asking if you would protect withdrawals for 1-2 years in the 403B with a lower risk fund. Guess I'm having an emotional issue taking money off the table by cashing out my biggest winner.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax-eff ... _placement
I am as surprised as anyone at how the 403b and our IRA's have grown in the last 7 years of retirement. Had I known that would happen, maybe I would have done things differently - but isn't that true with a lot of hindsight.
I've considered Roth conversion even this year, but at nearly age 79, there would be no benefit for me because of the five year rule. Maybe for those who are legacy recipients of our trust. I am moving more from IRA's to taxable under favorable senior deductions for next four years to keep future RMD's lower. I am also advancing some of my QCD giving which was targeted for my passing.
However, lower taxes were not the point of my post. Extremely happy with our tax situation. But now see clearly that a satisfactory AA across all accounts - which I have done- can still leave one single account riskier than I had intended. I will fix that moving forward.
Thanks again!
Statistics: Posted by jimmieg — Tue Dec 09, 2025 2:37 am — Replies 8 — Views 428