Robert Croak
speaker
6,815 appearances
40 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard yesterday
Robert Croak’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 40 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 13.
Appearances
The government actually forces you to start pulling money out and paying taxes on it, whether you actually need the money or not.
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In this section to me, God, it's really hitting me hard right now is most people just have no idea about this and they don't prepare enough for this portion of it.
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And I think it really gets them off track.
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So right now, as it stands, the age is 73, and it's already actually scheduled to move to 75 years old by 2033 under the current law.
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But as of today, if you have pre-tax retirement accounts, 73 is the important number you need to know.
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So here's why this catches so many people off guard.
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Let's say you've done a great job saving.
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You've got $1.5 million sitting in a traditional IRA by the time you hit 73 years old.
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The IRS has a formula based on your age and account balance that forces you to withdraw a specific amount every year, and that withdrawal counts as ordinary income
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stacked right on top of social security and anything else you're bringing in.
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And if you didn't actually need that money this year, you're now paying taxes on income you didn't ask for, and it can bump you into a higher tax bracket than you expected in retirement.
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I am blown away by this episode, just thinking about bracket management.
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You never hear anyone talk about this.
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You never hear anyone in our peer groups breaking this down so people don't get these surprises.
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I like that you use the word bomb, this tax bomb, because it is something people are not really expecting and are not prepared for.
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Please make sure if you see this episode, take some notes, get it to your tax people, maybe use ChatGPT or whatever your AI is that you can really understand your own situation to make sure you prepare for this because I think it is really, really important.
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So the broader lesson here that's tying this whole episode together, hitting your freedom number isn't just about the accumulation phase.
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it's about structuring things so the government or bad debt or an unplanned expense don't quietly take a bite out of the freedom you've spent years building so austin let's go into the action steps here's your checklist from today's episode and ask yourself these four questions number one do you actually know your freedom number factoring in any income you plan to keep earning by choice
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an actual dollar figure, not a woo-woo number that's out there that you're not sure of?
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Two, have you calculated the nest egg required to close the gap using the 4% rule?
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Showing 1201–1220 of 6,815 · page 61 of 341
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