Health Insurance

Let me start with this: I have immense respect for Certified Public Accountants. A great CPA is a master of the tax code, a historian of your financial past. As well as an essential partner in ensuring you pay what you owe, and not a penny more. But the...

For a federal retiree, IRMAA is usually a timing problem before it is a Medicare problem. Social Security generally uses tax information from two years earlier to determine the income-related surcharge on Medicare Part B and Part D. So a taxable TSP move you make in 2026 can generally...

If your Medicare IRMAA stayed high after a divorce or the death of your spouse, you may be able to ask Social Security to use more recent income information. Both divorce or annulment and death of a spouse are recognized IRMAA life-changing events. If you are already sorting through a...

Married filing separately can make IRMAA dramatically more expensive—but there is an important exception. If you filed a separate return and lived with your spouse at any time during the tax year Social Security is using, Medicare applies a special, compressed IRMAA table. In 2026, once your individual MAGI...

The couple sat across from me, retirement just two years away, staring at a projected $5,451 tax bomb they never saw coming. They had just sold their family home of 30 years, and their advisor told them, "Don't worry, the gain is mostly excluded." He was right about the capital...

This tool helps you answer a narrower question than “Can I appeal IRMAA?” It asks whether your situation appears to fit Social Security's life-changing-event route for using more recent income information, and then points you to the next thing to verify. That distinction matters because not every unfair-looking IRMAA bill...

A Medicare Part B premium can look like a simple monthly bill until income enters the picture. In 2026, the standard premium is $202.90 per month, but higher-income beneficiaries can pay as much as $689.90 per month for Part B before adding any Part D IRMAA. The number that controls...

Use this IRMAA calculator two ways: get a quick estimate of your published 2026 Medicare Part B and Part D IRMAA using 2024 MAGI, or switch to Planning / What-If mode to test how a Roth conversion, taxable capital gain, QCD offset, or another income change could move you...

Part D IRMAA is an income-based amount added to your Medicare prescription drug coverage cost. For 2026, most beneficiaries with 2024 modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) above $109,000 as an individual or $218,000 as a married couple filing jointly pay an extra $14.50 to $91.00 per month, per Medicare...

For Medicare IRMAA, your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) generally starts with adjusted gross income (AGI) from Form 1040, line 11, then adds tax-exempt interest from line 2a. The hard part is not the formula. It is knowing which parts of wages, retirement distributions, Social Security, investment gains, business...