I agree that playing with some planners will help clarify various issues and choices.
A few general things to keep in mind:
(1) Minimizing taxes paid and maximizing post-tax results are not necessarily the same thing, and the second thing would seem to be the more important one;
(2) If you have more unavoidable taxable income than you need for spending on yourself and family, say in the SS+RMD phase, then charitable giving can be a pretty tax-efficient solution to such a problem;
(3) Usually you will want to spend stock dividends in taxable because you are taxed on them anyway; and
(3) Return of capital is not taxable. This is of particular relevance to things like temporary positions in taxable accounts you plan to spend down to zero--a lot of that spending money may end up untaxed return of capital, which can be quite helpful when managing taxes.
A few general things to keep in mind:
(1) Minimizing taxes paid and maximizing post-tax results are not necessarily the same thing, and the second thing would seem to be the more important one;
(2) If you have more unavoidable taxable income than you need for spending on yourself and family, say in the SS+RMD phase, then charitable giving can be a pretty tax-efficient solution to such a problem;
(3) Usually you will want to spend stock dividends in taxable because you are taxed on them anyway; and
(3) Return of capital is not taxable. This is of particular relevance to things like temporary positions in taxable accounts you plan to spend down to zero--a lot of that spending money may end up untaxed return of capital, which can be quite helpful when managing taxes.
Statistics: Posted by NiceUnparticularMan — Thu Jan 22, 2026 11:09 am — Replies 4 — Views 218