When to Make Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts

Just enter your age for the year in which you need to make a withdrawal and the balance in your account as of the end of the previous year. The calculator also has an input for your expected rate of return, which allows it to calculate your expected required minimum distributions for future years.

Say for instance the balance in your IRA was $200,000 as of Dec. 31, 2007, and you turn 70 before June 30, 2008. Your RMD for 2008 would be $7,299.27, so you would need to withdraw an amount from your IRA equal to or greater than that amount by April 1, 2009. Your second RMD of $7,876 (assuming your investments earn 8%) would be due by Dec. 31, 2009.

The April deadline for the first withdrawal is the "beginning date" of the RMDs. In subsequent years, the withdrawals for a given year must be made by Dec. 31 of the same year.

Your RMD will typically be lower if you are married and your spouse is more than a decade younger than you are. In that case, the IRS uses a different life expectancy table in its calculations -- one that takes into account the fact that your spouse will likely outlive you.

Bear in mind that if you hold multiple retirement accounts, you must calculate RMDs for each one. You can add up the separate amounts and withdraw the total from only one of your accounts.