You Can Delay Your First RMD Until April 1 of the Year After You Turn 73. For a 73-Year-Old With a $900,000 IRA and $3,000 a Month in Social Security, the Delay Costs More Than It Saves.

There is a line in the IRS rules that sounds like a gift. The year you turn 73, you have to start taking money out of your traditional IRA whether you need it or not. But for that first year only, you are allowed to wait until April 1 of the following year to take it. Fifteen extra months of tax-deferred growth, and a whole tax year with no required withdrawal on your return.

Plenty of people take the delay. Custodians mention it in their year-end letters. It is legal, it is simple, and for most retirees with a six-figure IRA it is a mistake that costs real money. Here is the arithmetic on a $900,000 account.

What the rule actually does

The April 1 deadline moves the first withdrawal, but it does not move the second one. Your second required withdrawal is due by December 31 of that same year, no exceptions. So if you turn 73 in 2026 and wait, you take the 2026 withdrawal in early 2027 and the 2027 withdrawal by the end of 2027. Two years of required income land on one tax return.

The size of each withdrawal comes from an IRS table. At 73 you divide your account balance from the end of the previous year by 26.5. At 74 you divide by 25.5. The divisor gets smaller every year, so the withdrawals get larger as a share of what you have.

The $900,000 IRA, two ways

Take a single retiree who turns 73 in 2026 with $900,000 in a traditional IRA at the end of 2025, $36,000 a year in Social Security, and $12,000 of other income from a small pension. Assume the account grows modestly to $930,000 by the end of 2026.

The first required withdrawal is $900,000 divided by 26.5, which is $33,962. The second, for 2027, is $930,000 divided by 25.5, which is $36,471.

Take them on schedule and 2026 looks like this. Income is $12,000 plus $33,962 from the IRA. Run the Social Security worksheet and $29,968 of the $36,000 benefit is taxable. After the $16,100 standard deduction, the $2,050 extra for being over 65, and almost all of the new $6,000 senior deduction, taxable income is about $51,800. Federal tax is roughly $6,100. The year after looks much the same with the slightly larger withdrawal, call it $6,850. Two years, about $12,950 in federal tax.

Now take the delay. In 2026 the return shows $12,000 of pension and nothing from the IRA. Only $2,500 of Social Security is taxable at that income level, and after deductions the taxable income is zero. Federal tax is zero. That is the part that feels like a win.

Then 2027 arrives with both withdrawals on it: $33,962 plus $36,471, which is $70,433 from the IRA on top of the $12,000 pension. The full 85% of Social Security is now taxable, $30,600. Adjusted gross income is about $113,000. The senior deduction, which starts shrinking above $75,000, loses $2,280 of its $6,000. Taxable income is about $91,200, and roughly $40,800 of it sits in the 22% bracket instead of the 12% bracket it would have occupied if the withdrawals had been spread across two years. Federal tax for 2027 is about $14,800.

Two years, about $14,800 in federal tax, against $12,950 if you had just taken the first withdrawal in 2026. The delay costs about $1,800 in extra federal tax, using the 2026 brackets for both years.

The second bill, two years later

That is the smaller problem. The bigger one comes from Medicare, which sets your premium surcharge using your tax return from two years earlier. For a single filer the first surcharge tier in 2026 starts at $109,000 of income. The doubled-up year puts this retiree at about $113,000, which is over the line.

Crossing it by $4,000 does not cost $4,000. It costs the full first-tier surcharge for every month of 2029: $81.20 a month on Part B plus about $14.50 on Part D, roughly $1,150 for the year. If you are married and both on Medicare the surcharge hits both of you. The thresholds are indexed, so the 2029 line will be a little higher than $109,000, but on these numbers it is close enough that the delay is a coin flip on a $1,150 bill that taking the withdrawal on time avoids entirely.

Add it up and the fifteen months of deferral cost about $3,000. The growth on $33,962 over those fifteen months, at the 4.95% a 10-year Treasury pays today, is about $2,100, and it is taxable when it comes out. The delay loses on its own terms.

When the delay does make sense

There are two situations where you should take it. The first is a retiree who is still working at 73 with a big salary that stops in the following year. Pushing the first withdrawal into the lower-income year can save more than the doubling costs. The second is someone whose income is so far below $75,000 that even the doubled year stays under every threshold. On a $300,000 IRA with little other income the two withdrawals together are about $23,000 and the delay is harmless.

For everyone else, the test is simple. Add the two withdrawals to your other income and your taxable Social Security and see whether the total crosses $75,000, $105,700, or $109,000 for a single filer. Those are the lines where the senior deduction starts shrinking, the 24% bracket starts, and the Medicare surcharge begins. For a joint return the lines are $150,000, $211,400, and $218,000. If the doubled year crosses one that the spread years would not, take the first withdrawal in the year you turn 73.

The bottom line

The April 1 rule is a deadline, not a strategy. On a $900,000 IRA it turns a pair of $6,000-and-change tax years into one $14,800 year, shrinks a deduction that was built for exactly this retiree, and puts a Medicare surcharge on the table two years later. Take the first withdrawal in the calendar year you turn 73, or better, start spending down or converting the account in your late 60s so the required withdrawals never get this big in the first place.

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