She Took Her First RMD in April Instead of December. The Second One Came Due Nine Months Later, in the Same Tax Year, and Cost Her a Medicare Bracket.

She Took Her First RMD in April Instead of December. The Second One Came Due Nine Months Later, in the Same Tax Year, and Cost Her a Medicare Bracket.

David Beren

Mon, August 31, 2026 at 5:08 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

• Deferring the first RMD to April 1 stacks two full years of required withdrawals onto one tax return, roughly doubling taxable retirement income.

• Medicare's IRMAA surcharge uses income from two years prior, so a doubled-RMD year silently triggers higher premiums long after the money is spent.

• For most retirees, taking the first RMD by December 31 spreads income across two tax years and avoids the stack entirely.

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Required minimum distributions, or RMDs, are the amounts the IRS forces retirees to withdraw from tax-deferred accounts once they reach a certain age. The rules give first-timers a one-time option: take the initial withdrawal by December 31 of the year you become eligible, or defer it until April 1 of the following year. That deferral looks like a break. In practice, it is one of the most expensive scheduling choices a retiree can make, and the Medicare bill does not show up until two years later.

The scenario in the headline plays out constantly. A woman turns 73, hits her required beginning date (the deadline by which she must take her first RMD), and chooses to wait. She takes her first RMD on April 1 of the next year. Her second RMD is due December 31 of that same calendar year. Both distributions land in one tax return, roughly nine months apart on the calendar but stacked into a single filing.

How the Stack Actually Forms

Deferring the first distribution moves the first RMD into the same tax year as the second, which roughly doubles the taxable retirement income reported that year. A retiree who expected an orderly annual withdrawal ends up reporting two of them at once, on top of Social Security, pension income, interest, and any part-time work.

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The downstream effects follow the tax code mechanically. Higher taxable income can increase the taxable portion of Social Security benefits, push the retiree into a higher marginal bracket, and change the treatment of other income-tested items such as the net investment income tax, capital gains rates, and various deductions and credits. These effects are the ordinary result of stacking two years of required income onto one Form 1040.

Where the Medicare Bracket Comes In

The Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount, or IRMAA, is the surcharge added to Medicare Part B and Part D premiums once modified adjusted gross income crosses set thresholds. For a single filer, crossing just $1 over the $109,000 threshold triggers the first IRMAA cliff. That single dollar pushes her Part B monthly premium from the standard $202.90 up to $284.10, while adding a $14.50 monthly Part D surcharge. Because Medicare uses a two-year lookback, stacking two RMDs into one calendar year locks in an unavoidable penalty of at least $1,148 in extra Medicare surcharges two years down the road.

IRMAA works as a cliff, not a slope. If you cross a threshold by just one dollar, you pay the full surcharge for the entire year. That means a retiree can trip into a higher bracket by a rounding error and end up paying the elevated premium for all twelve months. Stacking two RMDs into the same tax year is a surefire way to clear a bracket that a single year's distribution would have stayed safely under.

Appeal Path, and Why It Usually Does Not Help

The Social Security Administration allows an IRMAA appeal using Form SSA-44 when a beneficiary experiences a life-changing event, such as retirement, the death of a spouse, divorce, or loss of pension income. The form asks for documentation of the event and the resulting income reduction. A voluntary decision to defer the first RMD to April 1 is generally not itself a qualifying event. The appeal is designed to fix genuine changes in circumstances, not scheduling regret.

Background Context Retirees Are Managing Around

The broader environment does not make any of this easier. The Consumer Price Index sat at 332.8 in July 2026, and early Q3 data points to a 2027 Social Security COLA tracking near 3.1%. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.67% on August 27, 2026, keeping bond yields relatively elevated. None of that changes how RMDs are calculated, but it does mean the accounts generating those required distributions are generally larger than they were just a few years ago. And with larger account balances come larger distributions, which make it easier to tumble into bracket cliffs you might have avoided before.

What the Data Actually Says About the Choice

For most retirees, taking the first RMD by December 31 of the first eligible year, rather than deferring to April 1, spreads the required income across two tax years and avoids the stack. The deferral option exists in the code for a reason, and it fits only in narrow cases: a known income drop in the following year, a planned charitable qualified distribution, or a large deductible medical event. Outside those cases, reporting on retired couples caught by the same mechanism tends to describe surprise rather than strategy. The deferral is legal, though it is uncommonly the preferred path outside those narrow cases.

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Now you can learn the strategies wealthy retirees use to fund their retirement with The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income from Fisher Investments. Download the guide today! (sponsor)

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