If you turned 73 in 2025 and hold a traditional IRA, the IRS technically gives you until April 1, 2026, to take your first required minimum distribution. That sounds generous. But your second RMD is still due by December 31, 2026, which means two fully taxable withdrawals land on the same tax return. For a retiree with $500,000 in a traditional IRA, that can add close to $38,000 in income to a single year, enough to push you into a higher federal tax bracket and, two years later, trigger Medicare premium surcharges you never saw coming.
Thousands of retirees walk into this timing trap annually. Here is how it works, what it costs, and how to decide whether the deferral is worth it.
How the April 1 deferral works
Under the SECURE 2.0 Act, the age for required minimum distributions shifted to 73 for anyone born between 1951 and 1959. (It rises to 75 for those born in 1960 or later, starting in 2033.) The IRS states that your first RMD applies for the calendar year you reach the trigger age, but the actual deadline to take that distribution is April 1 of the following year. The agency calls this the “required beginning date.”
The trap is in what comes next: your second RMD is still due by December 31 of that same following year. Two withdrawals, one tax return.
Each RMD is calculated by dividing the prior year-end account balance by a life-expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (Publication 590-B). For a 73-year-old, the divisor is 26.5. On a $500,000 balance, that produces a first-year RMD of about $18,868. The second distribution, based on the following year-end balance and the factor for age 74 (25.5), would be a similar amount, depending on market performance. Stack them together and you are looking at roughly $37,000 to $38,000 in additional taxable income in a single year.
The IRS also maintains a central page on required distributions that outlines the basic structure. For traditional IRAs, the age-based trigger applies regardless of whether the owner is still working. Employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k)s offer a narrower exception: participants who are still employed by the plan sponsor and do not own 5% or more of the business can generally delay their first distribution until April 1 following the year they retire. That exception does not extend to IRAs. So a person still working at 73 could avoid doubling up on workplace plan distributions while still facing the full timing squeeze on any separate IRA accounts.
Missing an RMD carries a stiff penalty. Under SECURE 2.0, the excise tax for a missed distribution is 25% of the shortfall, reduced to 10% if corrected within two years. That alone makes the timing decision worth getting right.
Why Medicare premiums are the hidden cost
The income spike from doubling up does not just affect your federal tax bracket. It can also raise your Medicare premiums through a mechanism called the income-related monthly adjustment amount, or IRMAA.
The Social Security Administration sets IRMAA surcharges for Medicare Part B (outpatient coverage) and Part D (prescription drugs) based on your modified adjusted gross income from two years prior. If you stack two RMDs into 2026, the SSA will use your 2026 tax return when calculating your 2028 premiums.
To illustrate the scale: for the 2025 premium year, the first IRMAA surcharge kicks in when modified adjusted gross income exceeds $106,000 for a single filer or $212,000 for a married couple filing jointly, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Above those thresholds, Part B premiums rise in steps. At the highest 2025 bracket (single filers above $500,000), the monthly Part B premium reaches roughly $604 compared with the standard $185.00. Part D surcharges follow a parallel bracket structure. CMS adjusts these thresholds annually, so the exact 2026 figures may shift slightly, but the architecture stays the same: cross a line, and your monthly premiums jump.
Consider a single retiree collecting $30,000 in Social Security and $25,000 from a pension. That puts baseline income around $55,000. Add one RMD of $18,868 and total income stays below the first IRMAA threshold. Add two RMDs totaling $37,736 and income climbs above $90,000, still below the 2025 single-filer threshold but uncomfortably close. For retirees with slightly higher pensions, investment income, or larger IRA balances, the second distribution is the one that tips them over. The resulting surcharge can add $1,000 or more per person in annual Medicare costs, and it persists for the full premium year.
Can you appeal the surcharge?
The SSA does allow beneficiaries to request a reconsideration of IRMAA using Form SSA-44, but only if a qualifying “life-changing event” caused the income spike. The form lists specific triggers: marriage, divorce, death of a spouse, work stoppage, work reduction, loss of income-producing property, or loss of a pension.
Voluntarily deferring an RMD and doubling up distributions does not appear on that list. That means most retirees who land in a higher IRMAA bracket because of the April 1 deferral have no formal recourse. The surcharge is based on reported income, and the SSA applies it mechanically. Unless your doubled-distribution year also happened to coincide with an actual qualifying event, such as retiring from a job that year, the higher premiums will stand.
What retirees approaching 73 should weigh
The central question: does holding onto your money for a few extra months outweigh the tax and Medicare cost of cramming two distributions into one year?
For retirees with smaller IRA balances or those whose income already sits well below the first IRMAA threshold, the deferral may be harmless. The doubled income might not push them into a higher bracket for either taxes or Medicare.
For retirees with larger balances, particularly those with $400,000 or more in traditional IRAs, the math tilts the other way. Taking the first RMD by December 31 of the year you turn 73, rather than waiting until the following April, spreads the income across two tax years and keeps each year’s adjusted gross income lower. That separation can mean the difference between paying the standard Part B premium and paying hundreds more per month two years later.
Some financial planners recommend Roth conversions in the years before RMDs begin as a way to reduce future required distribution amounts. Converting traditional IRA funds to a Roth triggers taxes in the conversion year but removes those assets from future RMD calculations entirely, since Roth IRAs are not subject to lifetime RMDs under current law. That strategy requires careful timing relative to IRMAA thresholds, because the conversion income itself can trigger surcharges. Ideally, conversions are spread across several lower-income years well before age 73, not attempted as a last-minute fix.
Why the timing trap keeps catching people
No publicly available IRS or SSA data shows how many account owners elect the April 1 deferral versus taking the first withdrawal in the year they turn 73. Without that figure, the scale of the problem is hard to measure. It is also unclear how many retirees who defer are later caught off guard by the IRMAA increase, because the SSA does not publish records linking specific RMD timing choices to subsequent premium adjustments.
Part of the issue is structural. The RMD rules are administered by the IRS. Medicare premiums are set by CMS and enforced by the SSA. Retirees interact with these agencies separately, and nothing in the distribution process flags the downstream Medicare impact. A brokerage or plan administrator will send you a reminder to take your RMD. It will not tell you what that withdrawal will do to your Part B premium in two years.
Until those systems are connected, the burden falls on retirees and their advisers to trace the line from a distribution decision in one year to a premium bill two years later. The rules themselves are clearly documented across IRS guidance and SSA publications. The information is not hidden. But the consequences are spread across agencies, tax years, and premium cycles in a way that makes them remarkably easy to miss, right up until the bill arrives.
