When you are ready to retire, you probably will have some pension income, social security, taxable accounts, tax deferred accounts (401Ks, traditional IRAs, SEPs, etc.) and tax avoidance accounts (Roth IRAs, etc.). You will pay tax on the social security and pensions as they are paid to you, but on most, if not all, of the other accounts you can choose which to make withdrawals from. What should you take out first? See this article in Yahoo! Finance and Forbes.com by John Wasik for some help:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/three-step-plan-retirement-withdrawals-130900208.html

This order list is a basic thing as a starting point: you should really look at your income each year in addition to amounts you need to withdraw (if you are over 70 1/2 you may have to take some of the tax deferred money each year.) It would be smart to set up a planning session with your tax preparer in the middle of the year to check your tax situation so you can be better informed about what makes sense. If you have the information when you have your taxes prepared, that is a great time to take a look.

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