The Million Dollar TSP

Are you approaching or reached a million dollars in your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)?  Congratulations!  More than likely, your retirement goal is now funded.  If the entire account is allocated to pretax retirement savings, it’s time to speak with an advisor to do some tax planning.  There are several strategies that can be utilized to reduce the income taxes you will pay over your lifetime.

Meet John and Lisa, an active duty service member and a government employee wanting to retire in their 50’s.  Both are what we like to call super savers; for years they have been maxing out their TSP contributions and their IRA contributions.  In addition, they invested in non-retirement accounts every year.

Roth vs Pretax Contributions

At this point in John and Lisa’s career, their salaries are nearing the career peak.  They are in a higher tax bracket than they were a few years ago and because of that had defaulted to making pretax contributions to the TSP.

We analyzed the income taxes they are paying while working vs projected income taxes in retirement.  Based on that analysis, we determined that pretax contributions were only reducing the annual tax bill by a small amount.  Changing to Roth TSP contributions increases current income taxes modestly but significantly reduces lifetime income taxes.

Retirement Income Plan

Beginning to withdraw 4-6% of the balance in the pretax retirement savings, as soon as they retire, can help to reduce required minimum distributions in the future.  This strategy will not only fund spending needs in retirement but will also reduce their lifetime tax burden.

Roth conversions

For those that want to leave a tax friendly estate to their heirs or are married, beginning to convert some of the pretax retirement savings to Roth can significantly reduce the lifetime tax burden.

Since John and Lisa are married, inheritance of the retirement plan in the event of one spouse’s death must be considered.  Doubling the amount of pretax retirement savings and moving to a higher tax bracket because of the death of the spouse, will significantly increase income taxes for the surviving spouse.  We analyzed how much more income they could realize and stay in the same tax bracket.  We convert this amount each year to a Roth so that the future growth of the assets converted will be income tax free.

Gifts To Charity

Giving back to the community is a priority for Lisa and John.  They make significant charitable gifts each year.  Unfortunately, cash gifts to charity, do not give as much of a tax break as they had in the past.

Lisa and John have some individual stocks that are carrying large capital gains.  We recommended that they gift shares of these stocks to a donor advised fund instead of making cash gifts to the charity.  The charity will still receive their gift, Lisa and John will take the same income tax deduction and as an added benefit, avoid realized capital gains from the sale of their stocks.

Once Lisa and John turn 70, we plan to make the charitable gifts from their pretax retirement accounts.  This will provide a larger tax deduction than making gifts from income or non-retirement savings.  These qualified charitable distributions will also will count towards meeting the required minimum distributions.

Benefits of Tax Planning

These combined strategies have the potential to save over $2,000,000 in lifetime taxes for Lisa and John.  More importantly, it will enable them to retire in their early 50’s and start living the life they have always wanted to live.

If you’re ready to explore how you save on your lifetime income taxes, the MFAA advisors can help.  Find the profiles here.