Should we draw down my spouse’s RRIF faster?

Randall and his wife already have plenty of retirement income, so the temptation is to pull more than the required minimum from her sizable RRIF now, on the theory that shrinking it early will leave a smaller tax bill for the estate down the road. Allan walks through what the numbers actually show when you run them across a range of lifespans and investment returns, and the answer pushes back against the intuition. For a couple who plan to live a long time, sticking with the minimum withdrawal usually comes out ahead, partly because a TFSA keeps growing tax-free while the RRIF gradually winds down. Accelerating only tends to pay off if death arrives much earlier than expected. It is a useful read for retirees with comfortable income who worry more about estate tax than they need to.