Seeking tax alpha in retirement income

Abstract

We provide a framework to find an optimal decision for tax-efficient retirement income. By developing a model for income and capital gains tax with stock and bond investments in tax- deferred, tax-exempt, and taxable accounts, we identify three categories of retirees based on their income needs and net worth. We propose and evaluate a simple heuristic to determine the optimal retirement income strategy, quantifying a 0.5% annual return benefit. We call this benefit tax alpha and show its robustness to varying model input parameters. We also suggest approaches for large institutions or FinTech firms to improve their existing financial planning tools.