The Science of Retirement Income, Creating Income Alpha (Encore)

Two retirees with the same balance can take wildly different incomes home — it's not about returns, it's about taxes.This week on Money On Tap, Ben Brayshaw and Dan Michelon unpack The Science of Retirement Income — How to Create Income Alpha: the practice of beating the market not by picking better stocks, but by keeping more of what you already have through tax-aware planning.What you'll learn:

• What "Income Alpha" actually means — and why it's worth 15–30% more retirement income, year after year
• How Social Security gets taxed at 0%, 50%, or 85% — and how to control which one applies to you
• The Roth IRA conversion ladder: filling the 22% bracket today to avoid the 30%+ bracket later
• The lesser-known after-tax account strategy — converting future ordinary-income tax into capital-gains tax
• Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) — the single highest-leverage move for charitable retirees
• Donor-Advised Funds and Charitable Trusts — stacking giving with Roth conversion years
• The hidden IRMAA Medicare tax — and the income thresholds that can cost you $1,000–$3,000 a year
• The Widow Tax Trap — the most damaging tax in retirement and how to plan around it
• Why the year of a spouse's passing is the last big planning window — and what to do with it
• What 1–2 years of tax returns will tell a good planner that your investment statement never will

Plus Money In The News:

• Weight-loss drug developers line up to tap a $150B market (Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, the pill-vs-shot race)
• Nike stock tumbles 13% to an 11-year low on China weakness
• Average tax refund up 11% from a year ago — IRS data and what it means for inflation

Free resource: Email us with "Charitable Giving Booklet" in the subject and we'll send our charitable giving guide.Read the companion blog: brayshawfinancial.com/blog
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• If the S&P 500 is up 10%, why isn't my portfolio?
  Because the S&P 500 is cap-weighted: seven stocks absorb about a third of every dollar, and the top 10 holdings make up 35–55% of most S&P funds. In 2026 those mega-caps lagged — the Mag Seven are collectively negative — while sectors like energy (+28.1%) and technology (+26.8%) led. If your ETFs overlap in the same top names, you own the laggards several times over. The fix starts with knowing what you actually own.