Boomer Benchmark Presents IRA Puzzler

When a kid's birthday is in the summer, teachers generally let them bring cupcakes into class on their half-birthday. For a little person, this is quite a difficult concept and clearly not as much fun as the real deal.

So when the IRA laws were written in 1974, maybe a bunch of Congressman were still bitter that they spent their lives celebrating their half-birthdays and decided to make 59-and-a-half a monumental age.

Yes, at age 59-and-a-half, you're finally eligible to withdraw money from your IRA, penalty-free. While you still owe ordinary income tax on that money, which could be as high as 35%, the pesky 10% early-withdrawal penalty is gone. ...