Your IRA most likely represents a significant portion of your long-term retirement savings and can also play an important role in annual tax planning Depending on your situation and goals you might want to consider whether a Traditional IRA or a Roth IRA makes the most sense whether your required minimum distributions can be given to charity or whether you should accelerate your IRA distributions , Pick the right IRA vehicle for you, The point of all IRAs is to encourage people to save for retirement Therefore you are discouraged (via penalties to take any money out of these accounts until you turn 59 ½ , Traditional IRAs, Contributions are made with pre-tax money ¹  meaning you save money by not paying tax initially Distributions are fully taxable as ordinary income Penalty for withdrawals prior to age 59 ½ You must take your first required minimum distribution for the year in which you reach age 73 However you can delay taking the first RMD until April 1 of the following year If you reached age 73 in 2024 you…, Roth IRAs, Contributions are made with after-tax money Distributions are tax-free Penalty for withdrawals prior to age 59 ½ No required minimum distributions (RMDs Prior to tax time make sure to fund your IRA and work with your professional advisors to help you manage your RMDs if required, Take advantage of Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs, For many years the rules allowing a tax-free Qualified Charitable Distribution or QCD directly from an IRA to charity have been on-again off-again often getting extended at the very end of the year However the QCD rules have finally become permanent This is good news as it makes it easier for you to make proactive charitable contributions and minimize the tax associated with required minimum…, Convert your Traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, If you do not need or expect to need the annual cash flow from your RMD it might make sense for you to consider converting your Traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs Among the advantages are Tax-free distributions Contributions can be made to the Roth IRA after age 70 ½ No annual RMDs Roth IRAs are a tax-efficient way to transfer wealth to beneficiaries upon the account owner’s death Please talk to…, Accelerate your distributions from your IRAs, One final tax idea to consider is to accelerate your distributions from your Traditional IRAs beyond the RMD amount  Depending on your expected taxable income in a given year it may make sense to accelerate distributions into years when your expected taxable income is lower This also may be appropriate in years when you have higher-than-average deductions By accelerating distributions you also…, Published March 2025, ¹Under certain circumstances your contribution may need to be funded with after-tax money - Source Mesirow Wealth Management 2 Retirement plan and IRA required minimum distributions FAQs | Internal Revenue Service    

Irene Eliacostas is a Managing Director in Mesirow Institutional Sales and Trading Her primary responsibilities focus on municipal sales and trading working closely with traders and salespeople managing the operational aspects associated within the division Irene has more than 40 years of experience in the financial industry Prior to joining Mesirow in 2005 she worked in the Investment Management…