RMD Calculator: When the IRS Starts Choosing Your Income

Your required minimum distributions start at 73 or 75 depending on your birth year — most calculators assume 73. See what yours will be, and how it grows. Educational only.

Birth yearThis — not your age — decides when RMDs start.Traditional IRA / 401(k) balanceAssumed annual return (%)Other retirement incomeSocial Security, pension, taxable interest — everything but the RMD.Filing status

Born in 1962, your applicable RMD age is 75 — in 2037, 11 years from now.

Your first estimated RMD is about $62,573.

Not 73. You get two more years. SECURE 2.0 set two RMD ages: 73 for those born 1951–1959, and 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Most calculators — and most articles — quote a flat 73. Being born in 1962 buys you two extra years in which you, not the IRS, decide your taxable income. That is precisely the window a Roth conversion plan is built in.

First RMD, at 75

$62,573

4.1% of the balance

RMD at 85

$94,753

6.2% of the balance

Divisor at 75 → 85

24.6 → 16.0

smaller divisor, bigger forced cut

RMD start age by birth cohort

The applicable age changed twice. Birth date—not the year you retire—selects the rule for IRA owners.

Applicable required minimum distribution age for each birth cohort
Birth cohort	Applicable age	Planning meaning
Before July 1, 1949	70½	Prior-law cohort; RMDs have already begun.
July 1, 1949–December 31, 1950	72	SECURE Act cohort; RMDs have already begun.
1951–1959	73	SECURE 2.0’s first cohort.
1960 or later	75	Two additional years of owner-controlled income versus age 73.

Source: IRS final RMD regulations, T.D. 10001. Workplace plans can have a still-working exception; inherited accounts use different rules.

Why the RMD keeps growing. It is the balance divided by a divisor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, and that divisor shrinks every year — 24.6 at 75, 16.0 at 85, 12.2 at 90. So the forced withdrawal rises as a share of the account, not just in dollars, even while the balance compounds. A plan that ignores it lets the IRS choose your taxable income in your eighties.

The two levers. Convert to Roth before RMDs start — Roth IRAs have no RMD while you are alive. And from 70½ you can send up to $111,000 a year straight from an IRA to charity as a qualified charitable distribution: it satisfies the RMD and never enters your income at all, so it never lifts IRMAA and never taxes another dollar of Social Security.

Uses the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (Pub 590-B, Appendix B). If your spouse is your sole beneficiary and more than 10 years younger, you use the Joint Life table instead and your real RMD is smaller than shown here. Roth 401(k)s no longer have RMDs (SECURE 2.0 §325). Inherited IRAs follow different rules entirely. Social Security benefit taxation begins at $32,000 of combined income and is not modelled here. Educational estimate, not tax advice.

Numbers behind this result

Open the exact public record for the legal figure or modeling convention used above.

Sources and notes

Publication 590-B, Appendix B — Uniform Lifetime Table (Table III)Internal Revenue Service
Retirement plan and IRA required minimum distributions FAQsInternal Revenue Service
2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles (IRMAA tiers)Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

These tools use simplified assumptions. Use them to frame better questions, then verify details against primary sources or a qualified professional.