<div id="readability-page-1"><div> By Beth Pinsker You have until Dec. 31 to take your required distribution. Consider this your wake-up call. If you don't take your RMD, you're wasting money on tax penalties. One of the more obscure certainties in life is that once you hit the age for required minimum distributions, which is now 73, you have to take them from your accounts that have pretax money. There's no wiggle room. There's an IRS formula, which you apply to the balance of the IRA or 401(k) that you've been saving in for your whole working life, and you make your tax payment on the RMD withdrawal by Dec. 31. If you don't, you're going to have tax trouble in terms of fees and back payments due. Still, some 7% of Vanguard customers missed this deadline in 2024, and this group paid an average $1,100 in penalties. Vanguard has 400,000 people in its RMD population, and it estimates that the overall U.S. population of RMD age is 8.7 million. That puts the aggregate amount of fees for missed withdrawals in the neighborhood of $1.7 billion, Vanguard said. Most of the Vanguard violators missed their payments completely, and more than half of them missed in multiple years. Another 24% of clients took too small a withdrawal in 2024, which also leads to problems with the IRS. The current penalty is 25%, or 10% if fixed immediately. Only about 70% of the Vanguard RMD population got things right last year. &#34;Ideally, the number of people who miss their RMD would be zero percent. It's an easily avoidable mistake,&#34; said Aaron Goodman, senior investment strategist at Vanguard. How to fix the problem Vanguard's analysis points toward investor knowledge as the culprit in most cases of missed RMDs. The firm did not see a strong age pattern that would suggest cognitive decline as people age to be a major factor. A much stronger predictor was if a person missed their withdrawal one year. Those people were more likely to miss it the next year, too. &#34;Some people are uninformed, so they miss it every year,&#34; said Goodman. &#34;If you see an increasing pattern with age, that might indicate cognitive decline, but that's not to say it's not part of the story. It's just that the education part of it is why it's persistent.&#34; A retirement-account custodian like Vanguard sends messages to clients, provides educational materials on its portals and makes things easy with automated withdrawal systems. But it can only lead its clients to the information; it can't make them follow through. Vanguard said about a third of its RMD customers use the automated withdrawal feature, for instance. The same goes for tax professionals and financial advisers. The IRS places the onus of responsibility on the taxpayer, and they are the ones who have to make sure this task gets done every year once they reach the age when RMDs are required. &#34;This is where liability kicks in for financial institutions,&#34; said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant with his own firm in Southern California. &#34;Technically, it's the taxpayer who must notify the custodian that they want to do the RMD.&#34; The need for education extends to the whole family, Ringbauer said. He recently had to help a client whose father died last year before having taken his RMD. The adult child had no idea they had to take the RMD for him, and then continue taking RMDs on the account they inherited. It required immediately paying the money due, filing the correct tax forms to fix the mistake and asking for forgiveness for the penalties. &#34;Family members stepping in ahead of time would be so crucial,&#34; he said. &#34;They need to be asking: Has this been done? Do we need to start paying attention for mom and dad?&#34; Got a question about investing, how it fits into your overall financial plan and what strategies can help you make the most out of your money? You can write to me at beth.pinsker@marketwatch.com. Please put &#34;Fix My Portfolio&#34; in the subject line. You can also join the Retirement conversation in our Facebook community: Retire Better with MarketWatch. By submitting your story to Dow Jones &amp; Co., the publisher of MarketWatch, you understand and agree that we may use your story, or versions of it, in all media and platforms, including via third parties. More Fix My Portfolio How to start a solo 401(k) for your side hustle-and boost your savings up to the $70,000 limit I'm only 54 and my 401(k) plan is emailing me about buying annuities. Is this something I should do? There are much better ways to help your favorite charities than cramming in last-minute donations by Dec. 31. Here's how. -Beth Pinsker This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones &amp; Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. <pre></pre> (END) Dow Jones Newswires 12-26-25 1448ETCopyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones &amp; Company, Inc.</div></div>

FISI

Many people missed their Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) last year, leading to significant tax penalties. Vanguard reports that 7% of its customers missed the deadline, resulting in $1.7 billion in fees. Education is crucial to avoid these mistakes, as uninformed investors are more likely to miss RMDs repeatedly. Financial institutions and family members should ensure RMDs are taken to prevent penalties.

Too many people forgot their RMDs last year. Don't make this 'billion-dollar mistake.'