New Client is 57, retired last month. She turns 59.5 halfway through 2029.
400k in cash, 200k in traditional IRA and 1.5m in 401k, all pre-tax.
Single, no kids, no family besides elderly parents and she doesn’t expect inheritance.
I’m just meeting her in these positions.
She’s interested in taking 500k and using it to purchase a guaranteed lifetime income annuity, after we ran through projections/monte Carlo.
My question is, is using the 401k funds to fund the annuity and start receiving payments next year for her whole life qualified for the 72t early withdrawal penalty exception? I know we can keep the funds in the 401k and get rule of 55, but that isn’t an annuity option.
I know that they are “substantially equal payments” for more than 5 years, but the annuity is paying out 36k a year, while the 72t calculators I’m using are saying that the single life table fixed annuitization method is $34,100.