Taxes on a required minimum distribution are due as you receive the money during the year, not when you file your return the following April. That’s the short answer to the question of when to pay taxes on an RMD: the federal system runs on pay-as-you-go, so a large distribution that sits untaxed until April can trigger an underpayment penalty even if you eventually pay every dollar. You have two ways to stay current. Have your IRA or 401(k) custodian withhold federal tax from the distribution before it reaches you, or send the IRS quarterly estimated tax payments yourself.
Why April Isn’t the Deadline
An RMD from a traditional IRA, traditional 401(k), 403(b), or similar tax-deferred account counts as ordinary income in the year you receive it. It stacks on top of your Social Security, pension, and any other income, and it’s taxed at whatever bracket it lands in.1Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) Your custodian reports each distribution to the IRS on Form 1099-R and sends you a copy for your return.2Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc.
The IRS expects tax on that income to arrive in roughly the quarter you earned it. If it doesn’t, you owe interest on the shortfall for however long it was outstanding, calculated separately for each quarter you were behind. The tax return in April is a reconciliation, not the moment the clock starts.
One boundary worth noting: Roth IRAs are not subject to RMDs during your lifetime, and designated Roth 401(k) and 403(b) accounts became exempt starting in 2024.3Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs If every dollar of your retirement savings sits in a Roth, none of this applies to you.
Withholding From the Distribution
The simplest way to handle taxes on an RMD is to have your custodian withhold federal income tax before sending you what’s left. You pick the percentage, they remit it to the IRS, and nothing else is required from you. No vouchers, no quarterly deadlines, no separate payments to track.
The default federal withholding rate on an IRA distribution is 10%. For a retiree in the 22% or 24% bracket, that leaves a sizable gap. You can elect any rate from 0% to 100% by filing Form W-4R with your custodian.4Internal Revenue Service. About Form W-4R, Withholding Certificate for Nonperiodic Payments and Eligible Rollover Distributions Periodic pension payments that include an RMD component use Form W-4P instead, but most IRA and 401(k) withdrawals are nonperiodic and fall under W-4R.
Withholding carries a timing advantage that estimated payments do not. The IRS treats all withholding as if it were paid in four equal installments across the year, no matter when the actual distribution hit.5Internal Revenue Service. Pay As You Go, So You Won’t Owe: A Guide to Withholding, Estimated Taxes, and Ways to Avoid the Estimated Tax Penalty Take your whole RMD in December with 100% of the tax withheld, and the IRS credits a quarter of that withholding to each quarterly period as if you had been paying all along. That retroactive quality is why a late-year RMD with heavy withholding is often the cleanest fix when a retiree realizes partway through the year that they’re behind.
Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments
If you’d rather receive the full RMD and handle the tax separately, or if withholding alone won’t cover your total bill, you’ll make estimated tax payments using Form 1040-ES. The IRS sets four deadlines each year:6Internal Revenue Service. When to Pay Estimated Tax
- April 15, covering income received January through March
- June 15, covering April through May
- September 15, covering June through August
- January 15 of the following year, covering September through December
When a date falls on a weekend or federal holiday, it shifts to the next business day. Estimated payments are credited only to the quarter in which you pay them. A big payment in December covers the fourth quarter alone, not the full year.
Safe Harbor
You avoid an underpayment penalty if your total payments through withholding and estimated installments reach at least the smaller of 90% of your current-year tax or 100% of last year’s tax. If your adjusted gross income exceeded $150,000 the prior year ($75,000 if married filing separately), the second threshold rises to 110% of last year’s tax.7Internal Revenue Service. Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals Penalty A simpler escape hatch also applies: if your total tax due after subtracting withholding and credits is less than $1,000, there’s no penalty.8Internal Revenue Service. Estimated Tax
The Annualized Income Method for Late-Year RMDs
Taking your RMD late in the year creates a mismatch with the standard quarterly schedule. The income arrives in Q4, but the IRS expects payments spread across all four quarters. The annualized income installment method lets you calculate each quarter’s required payment based on income actually received through that point in the year, rather than treating the annual total as if it had been earned evenly. You elect it by checking box C on Form 2210 and completing Schedule AI.9Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2210 – Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals, Estates, and Trusts The arithmetic is tedious, but it can clear a penalty that would otherwise apply to earlier quarters when you had no RMD income at all.
The First-Year April 1 Option
The year you first reach RMD age, you have a one-time option to delay your initial distribution until April 1 of the following year.3Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs RMDs generally start the year you turn 73; if you were born in 1960 or later, that age becomes 75.
The catch is that your second RMD is still due by December 31 of that same following year. Delay the first one and you end up with two full RMDs taxed in a single year. Two distributions stacked together can push you into a higher bracket, raise your Medicare premiums two years out, and increase the taxable portion of your Social Security. For most retirees, taking the first RMD in the year you turn 73 is the better call. The April 1 delay really pays off only in an unusually low-income year where you can absorb the doubled income the next year without jumping brackets.
Reconciling at Filing Time
Your Form 1040 is where everything ties out. You report the RMD income, total up your withholding and estimated payments, and settle any remaining balance. The deadline is April 15 of the year after the distribution.10Internal Revenue Service. When to File
You can request an automatic extension to October 15 if you need more time to prepare the paperwork, but the extension covers filing only. Any tax owed is still due April 15, and interest and penalties begin accruing on an unpaid balance after that date whether you extended or not.11Internal Revenue Service. Get an Extension to File Your Tax Return If you’re uncertain of the final number, estimate high and pay that by April 15. Any overpayment comes back as a refund when you file.
What Mistiming the Tax Actually Costs
Three separate penalties can hit a retiree who handles an RMD poorly, and each punishes a different mistake.
Underpayment of Estimated Tax
If your combined withholding and estimated payments fall short of the safe harbor thresholds, the IRS charges interest on the shortfall for the time it was outstanding. The rate changes each quarter. For early 2026 it’s 7%, dropping to 6% for the second quarter.12Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates The charge compounds across each quarter you were short, which is exactly why late-year withholding (credited evenly across the whole year) often wipes it out.
You can request a waiver if you retired after age 62 or became disabled and the underpayment was due to reasonable cause. The IRS may also waive it when the shortfall followed a casualty, disaster, or other unusual circumstance.13Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2210 (2025)
Failure to Pay
If a balance is still owed when you file and you don’t pay it by April 15, the failure-to-pay penalty runs 0.5% of the unpaid amount per month, up to 25%. An approved IRS payment plan cuts the rate to 0.25% per month.14Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Pay Penalty
The 25% Excise Tax for Not Taking the RMD
This one is separate from the income-tax timing question but worth knowing. Failing to withdraw the required amount by the deadline carries a 25% excise tax on the shortfall. Correct the mistake within two years and the penalty drops to 10%.3Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs If your RMD was $20,000 and you took nothing, the excise is $5,000, or $2,000 if corrected promptly. The practical lesson: take the distribution on time even if you haven’t yet decided how to cover the income tax. You can always settle that through estimated payments or at filing. Not taking the distribution at all is the costliest mistake.