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Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement
Thinking about early retirement? Learn saving and drawdown strategies to guide you to and through early retirement with confidence.
Cody Garrett, CFP®, and Sean Mullaney, CPA, cut through the jargon to share strategies and tactics to reduce total lifetime taxes and accelerate the path to early retirement.
Too often, we "Taxes will crush your retirement!" Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement tackles those concerns head-on. The book explains how to build retirement savings and lower taxes during the working years, then explores drawdown approaches designed to help minimize taxes throughout retirement.
You'll learn how
- Navigate IRAs, 401(k)s, and other key retirement accounts
- Apply the "Compelling Three" tactics to build retirement savings during your working years
- Implement drawdown tactics for all phases of retirement, including Roth conversions and qualified charitable distributions
- Avoid or minimize the 10% early withdrawal penalty before age 591/2
- Adjust for the new 2025 tax laws for retirees from the One Big Beautiful Bill
- Plan for uncertainty around future tax law changes
- Handle RMDs and the dreaded Widow's Tax Trap
Inside, you'll
- 100+ realistic examples with detailed walkthroughs of both accumulation and drawdown tactics
- Clear explanations of early retirement distribution rules and advanced tax strategies
- Cody's Takes and Sean's Takes - two perspectives to sharpen your own judgment
Whether you're a do-it-yourself investor or a financial professional, this book equips you with the clarity and confidence to make informed tax planning decisions-without fear.
Cody Garrett, CFP®, and Sean Mullaney, CPA, cut through the jargon to share strategies and tactics to reduce total lifetime taxes and accelerate the path to early retirement.
Too often, we "Taxes will crush your retirement!" Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement tackles those concerns head-on. The book explains how to build retirement savings and lower taxes during the working years, then explores drawdown approaches designed to help minimize taxes throughout retirement.
You'll learn how
- Navigate IRAs, 401(k)s, and other key retirement accounts
- Apply the "Compelling Three" tactics to build retirement savings during your working years
- Implement drawdown tactics for all phases of retirement, including Roth conversions and qualified charitable distributions
- Avoid or minimize the 10% early withdrawal penalty before age 591/2
- Adjust for the new 2025 tax laws for retirees from the One Big Beautiful Bill
- Plan for uncertainty around future tax law changes
- Handle RMDs and the dreaded Widow's Tax Trap
Inside, you'll
- 100+ realistic examples with detailed walkthroughs of both accumulation and drawdown tactics
- Clear explanations of early retirement distribution rules and advanced tax strategies
- Cody's Takes and Sean's Takes - two perspectives to sharpen your own judgment
Whether you're a do-it-yourself investor or a financial professional, this book equips you with the clarity and confidence to make informed tax planning decisions-without fear.
356 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2025
179 people are currently reading
323 people want to read
About the author
Cody Garrett
1 book4 followersCody Garrett is an advice-only financial planner, educator, and founder of Measure Twice® Money, where he helps DIY investors make informed financial decisions aligned with their values. He also leads Measure Twice® Planners, an educational community for financial planners. Cody's insights have been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Forbes, and CNBC. He's a frequent guest on personal finance podcasts, including ChooseFI, The Long View (Morningstar), and Bogleheads on Investing.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 3, 2025
This is a great book for anyone (USA) who is seriously interested in planning their financial future, regardless of what stage of life you are at. From beginning your career to mid-career to late career to entering early retirement, you will find straightforward explanations and sound advice to apply to your own circumstances. The authors do an excellent job of simplifying tax planning as much as humanly possible and the numerous practical examples (with numbers) help to illustrate the concepts and outcomes. I have not seen a better book at laying out the broad concepts and then diving into the specific tax rules before wrapping up with practical examples showing the math that demonstrates the consequences of different treatments/choices. I highly recommend this book for all those who are serious about financial planning for their retirement as an American or tax resident of the USA.
Full disclosure: I am a CPA with almost 30 years in finance and accounting, so I am starting from a heavy finance/accounting perspective. That said, I really think the authors have laid it out as clearly as possible in a way that will allow a serious-but-determined novice to get their head around the vocabulary, tax regulations, and scenarios applicable to their own life. It will not be easy going, but the payoff will be huge regardless of whether you are leveraging the book to better understand what your tax accountant is telling you OR if you are managing your own finances and trying to prepare your household for eventual retirement. You can do this, but if you're just starting out, be patient with yourself and give your brain time to master the terms/concepts and use the practical examples to reinforce the tax treatment approaches.
Full disclosure: I am a CPA with almost 30 years in finance and accounting, so I am starting from a heavy finance/accounting perspective. That said, I really think the authors have laid it out as clearly as possible in a way that will allow a serious-but-determined novice to get their head around the vocabulary, tax regulations, and scenarios applicable to their own life. It will not be easy going, but the payoff will be huge regardless of whether you are leveraging the book to better understand what your tax accountant is telling you OR if you are managing your own finances and trying to prepare your household for eventual retirement. You can do this, but if you're just starting out, be patient with yourself and give your brain time to master the terms/concepts and use the practical examples to reinforce the tax treatment approaches.
October 10, 2025
ok this is THE personal finance book for anyone that manages their own finances / taxes (you do not need to be thinking about early retirement!) but I think if you’re starting out in personal finance maybe read a more accessible intro first (I’m thinking Ramit Sethi, Vivian Tu, etc) and then come here.
Also very timely to read this during the government shut down over premium tax credits for healthcare
Also very timely to read this during the government shut down over premium tax credits for healthcare
November 5, 2025
This book is really really good!! It has many examples of showing tax treatment for early retirement…. it was comforting to read through the examples of retires being taxed through retirement w/the traditional 401k vs. Roth.
December 10, 2025
I've been reading about this subject for a while, and I didn't encounter anything truly revelatory in this book, but I do feel like I have a better grasp on the big picture of tax planning than I did before. Even the information in chapter 1 laying out how the federal income tax formula works was useful from a big-picture perspective. I appreciate the authors weighing in on how to balance the Affordable Care Act premium tax credit vs Roth conversions in early retirement, and plan to take their advice by converting less than I'd originally intended to. Hopefully others will be able to read this book at an earlier point in their early retirement planning than I did!
February 17, 2026
If you are a regular listener to the "Choose FI" podcast or hang out in that space, Cody Garrett and Sean Mullaney are frequent guests and are knowledgeable about taxation aspects of financial independence. After the OBBB, they published this guide to tax planning around retirement. It is for a niche audience.
I consider myself an enthusiastic amateur in financial matters, well-read, pretty sophisticated, and a person that people come to for financial advice--though I never give advice, (always seek the advice of a professional). That said, I learned a lot from this book. Much of it was familiar territory, but they covered the vast majority of topics of interest to potential early (or normal aged) retirees.
There are a lot of numbers, and the topic isn't exactly riveting, but it is well done, well organized, and, I think, optimistic, despite it being primarily about taxes. It successfully removes fear and replaces it with knowledge. Whether you follow all or part of their framework, you will no doubt save significant money on your future tax bills.
I consider myself an enthusiastic amateur in financial matters, well-read, pretty sophisticated, and a person that people come to for financial advice--though I never give advice, (always seek the advice of a professional). That said, I learned a lot from this book. Much of it was familiar territory, but they covered the vast majority of topics of interest to potential early (or normal aged) retirees.
There are a lot of numbers, and the topic isn't exactly riveting, but it is well done, well organized, and, I think, optimistic, despite it being primarily about taxes. It successfully removes fear and replaces it with knowledge. Whether you follow all or part of their framework, you will no doubt save significant money on your future tax bills.
December 24, 2025
Exceptionally useful!
Found very helpful nuggets of practical advice and concepts I can use now throughout this book. Well written and engaging. Perfect blend of explanation and technical detail. I will definitely review and circle back to key sections. Very well organized. One of the most useful books I've encountered in this general space. Kudos and thanks to the authors for sharing this.
If I have one critique, it's that this book is not aimed at the wealthy. They often reference those who are very financially successful possibly considering other options or advice. But their examples tend to be more upper middle class retirees. That's presumably the sweet spot of the market, but worth considering for someone who is say Fat fired... Still, this doesn't detract from the excellent wisdom and learning on offer here. I will be recommending this excellent book to several in my network. So glad I came across it on Amazon!
Found very helpful nuggets of practical advice and concepts I can use now throughout this book. Well written and engaging. Perfect blend of explanation and technical detail. I will definitely review and circle back to key sections. Very well organized. One of the most useful books I've encountered in this general space. Kudos and thanks to the authors for sharing this.
If I have one critique, it's that this book is not aimed at the wealthy. They often reference those who are very financially successful possibly considering other options or advice. But their examples tend to be more upper middle class retirees. That's presumably the sweet spot of the market, but worth considering for someone who is say Fat fired... Still, this doesn't detract from the excellent wisdom and learning on offer here. I will be recommending this excellent book to several in my network. So glad I came across it on Amazon!
January 22, 2026
As an early (and lean) retiree this wasn’t as helpful for my situation. None of the examples reflected anything close to my situation. A lot of time is spent explaining edge cases for the over accumulators. I know I’m in a small minority of situations and it isn’t as complex as when you have over saved, which is why I still gave it a good 4 star rating.
January 28, 2026
Highly recommend - Cody and Sean take a difficult and taxing (pun intended) subject and make it easy to understand and digest with concise descriptions and plenty of examples. I learned about HSA spousal catch-up contributions that I was not aware of, which was an instant value add to our family's bottom line.
January 11, 2026
Excellent, well written, clear understandable advice. Took the authors advice & read through first without worrying about the charts too much. A book to refer to & go back over as needed. Thanks to Cody Garrett & Sean Mullaney for the information
January 11, 2026
I can't recommend this book enough.
October 30, 2025
Very useful even for those like me who will not be retiring early. Works through many different scenarios in detail, demystifies lots of concepts I’ve read about but never felt like I completely grasped.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews