Which to take from first and why? Taxable or tax deferred?

Age and health status has something to do with the timing.

Preferably the one with the least tax penalties. 401k really hurts when you pull it out because that's income tax instead of Capital gains. Course that depends on how much you need.

Yeh, they get those taxes sooner or later.

Probaly a mix of taxable and non-taxable in an attempt to play the tax brackets in your favor. Thats one of the reasons Roth accounts are so important.

Depends on what your objectives are and whether or not your tax deferred account has a non-taxable cost basis, or not. Also, depends on whether or not you have attained age 59-1/2.

I would take out the taxable ones now as we have lower rates than we have had for decades, also capital gains tax are very low, in fact 0 if your agi is below the trigger amount. When you say tax deferred to you mean like a ROTH that has no tax or was it tax deferred when invested? Tax deferred is not tax free. Also look at the earnings and returns, those that are earning well and will be tax free I would leave and pay taxes up front now as in 2026 we will review the tax rates, codes etc.

Bryce

You can withdraw from a 401k at 55 1/2 w/o penalty if you retired from the employer that held the 401k. For IRAs it's 59 1/2. Otherwise it's consider an "early withdrawal" and in addition to being treated as normal income in the year of withdrawal there is a 10% additional tax penalty.

If you have retired and have both a tax deferred retirement account (401k or IRA) that you can withdraw from w/o penalty, plus retirement investments/savings from earnings that you have already paid income tax on, it is generally considered better to let the IRA/401k grow and use the post tax first. That's because the IRA/401k will grow faster due to not being taxed until withdrawn (more money to work with).

Yeah. I didn't get that right. I meant Roth like you said.