Organizing for America | Laura Schwartz's Blog

Laura Schwartz's Blog

My reactions to some of the what is being said in the 2008 Presidental Campaign.

More on McCain's poorly thought out idea of suspending required IRA withdrawals

By Laura - Oct 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pm EDT

McCain’s suggestion about suspending the “required minimum withdrawal” from IRAs just goes to show how out of touch he is with the realities faced by the average American. After I read my previous entry about McCain and Income Tax to my husband, he reminded me that McCain receives a military retirement income as well as his, not insubstantial, United States Senate salary. So, of course, he does not need to dip into his IRAs.

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Is McCain trying to save on his 2008 Income Tax?

By Laura - Oct 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm EDT

This note is on the subject of John McCain’s suggestion to suspend the “required minimum withdrawal from IRA accounts for people of age 70 ½ and older.

I think that we, my husband and I, are middle class. I recently retired after working for almost 40 years in high-tech. My husband is now 70 years old and has been retired for some time. I asked if we could afford to forego the “required minimal withdrawal” from his IRA accounts in response to McCain’s suggestion. My husband’s response was that because we have taken the “required minimum withdrawal” into account in all of our financial planning we could NOT afford to NOT take this annual withdrawal. I am sure that there are few retirees that could actually afford to defer these withdrawals. Most retirees are, and have been, depending on these withdrawals to pay for the basic needs of housing, food, healthcare and transportation. On the other hand, if you are John McCain and have eight homes, thirteen automobiles, an airplane and a multi-millionaire wife, it probably is NOT necessary to take these withdrawals from your IRA account. How many Americans do not need the withdrawal? I doubt that if all the retirees who could afford to forego this withdrawal did NOT have to take it that it would make ANY dent in the current trading volume on the Stock Exchange. However, if those retirees were allowed to forego that withdrawal they would also NOT have to pay income tax on this money, thus reducing the amount of income tax paid to the IRS which would in turn reduce the income that the Federal government is counting on to pay for this mess. Maybe McCain is just trying to defer paying some income tax.

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