What's New
Recent improvements to ThunderHarbor. New tools are added regularly. This page is the fastest way to see what has changed and where to find it in the app.
State tax fixes, and relocation modeling for all 50 states
A trial user's question about moving from Virginia to New Jersey or Pennsylvania led to an audit of every state's tax rules, and the audit found real bugs. California was taxing Social Security at the state level, something California hasn't done in decades. Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Mississippi fully exempt pension and retirement account withdrawals, and none of the three had that modeled, so those states looked more expensive than they actually are. New Jersey's retirement income exclusion, up to $50,000 per spouse toward pension and IRA withdrawals, was missing entirely. Connecticut, Minnesota, and Utah also tax Social Security differently depending on income, and none of the three were modeled correctly either: Connecticut exempts it fully below $75,000 (single) or $100,000 (joint), then caps the taxable share at 25% of your benefit above that; Minnesota exempts it fully below roughly $84,000/$108,000, then phases the exemption out gradually over the next $36,000; Utah doesn't exempt Social Security directly, it gives a tax credit that fully offsets the tax below its threshold and shrinks as income rises above it. All of this is fixed now. The What-If Workshop's state relocation comparison, previously limited to the 7 states with no income tax, now covers all 50 states plus DC, so you can compare your actual numbers against any destination, not just the tax-free ones.
Compare withdrawal order alongside your Roth conversion pace
The conversion pace table on Roth Strategy now has a second lever, which account you draw from first. The default has always been brokerage first, since capital gains rates are usually lower than ordinary income tax and it lets your traditional IRA keep compounding tax-deferred. A new toggle compares that against IRA-first, spending your traditional IRA before touching brokerage so the brokerage account gets a full step-up in cost basis at death, forgiving its built-up gain for your heirs entirely. Flip the toggle and every number in the table, lifetime taxes, portfolio at 85, first-year RMD, Medicare surcharges, recalculates under that order, so you can see the real cost of preserving brokerage instead of guessing at it. This is a comparison only. It doesn't change how your actual plan draws money anywhere else in the app; Projection Table, Full Report, and Bucket Strategy all keep spending brokerage first the way they always have. If you've told ThunderHarbor in Life & Spending that leaving a legacy is your biggest concern, the tool calls out IRA-first as the recommended column outright. Otherwise it compares your own numbers under both orders and recommends whichever produces lower lifetime taxes for you, since the answer depends on how much you hold in each account type and isn't the same for every household. Either way your RMDs stay identical, fixed by law regardless of which account covers the rest of your spending.
Net Unrealized Appreciation (NUA) for employer stock in a 401k
If part of your 401k or 403b is employer stock, the IRS lets you roll only that stock into a regular brokerage account instead of an IRA when you separate from that plan. ThunderHarbor now models this. You pay ordinary income tax only on what you actually paid for the stock inside the plan, not on what it's worth today. The gap between the two stays untaxed at the rollover and becomes capital-gains basis in your brokerage account instead, taxed only when you eventually sell. Turn it on from the 401k account card, in onboarding or from Edit Profile. Enter the stock's current value and what you actually paid for it, then pick the year you do the rollover, which defaults to your retirement year. The Projection Table flags that year with the tax effect, and from there the balance behaves like any other brokerage dollar, taxed as capital gains on withdrawal like the rest of your taxable account. This only applies to a 401k or 403b, never an IRA, and once the stock rolls into an IRA instead, the opportunity is gone for good.
Legacy Planning rebuilt around what each part of your estate means for your heirs
Legacy Planning used to show one number: the income tax your heirs would owe on your traditional IRA, spread evenly over ten years with no growth. It now shows the whole picture at the age your heirs inherit. Your traditional balance is the only part that creates an income tax bill for them. Roth passes tax-free. Your taxable brokerage account gets a stepped-up basis at death, and the card shows how much built-up gain that forgives. An HSA is fully taxable to a non-spouse heir in the year they receive it, which is worth knowing if you plan to leave one. The heir estimate is now year by year: the inherited account keeps growing during the payout, each year is taxed at that year's brackets on top of the heir's own income, and the payout follows the SECURE Act 10-year rule. If your heirs are eligible designated beneficiaries (a minor child, a disabled or chronically ill person, or someone within ten years of your age), pick that heir type and the estimate stretches over their life expectancy instead. A new Estate and Inheritance Tax card estimates federal estate tax under current law, your state's estate tax if it has one, and inheritance tax in the states that charge children. Add home equity or a life insurance benefit as other estate assets so that estimate sees your whole estate. The conversion comparison now uses your tax rate in the years you would actually convert, not the year of death. And the Legacy tab, the legacy insight card, and the Full Report now all quote the same heir number, from one shared calculation. They used to differ.
Qualified Charitable Distributions now run inside your projection
The QCD setting on Legacy Planning used to be a standalone estimate of what your heirs might save. It now changes your actual plan. From the first full year after you turn 70 and a half, the amount you enter moves from your IRA straight to charity each year. It counts toward your RMD, never enters your income, MAGI, taxes, IRMAA tier, or ACA premium, and the Projection Table shows it as its own QCD line under your IRA withdrawal, with a matching column in the CSV export. If the QCD fits inside your RMD, the benefit is yours, not your heirs': the same money leaves the IRA either way, but that part of your RMD is never taxed. Legacy Planning now says so and shows your own lifetime tax saving instead of a heir saving that was never really there. One decision is yours to make: if the charity money is already inside the spending number you entered, check the new box so the QCD replaces that cash instead of the plan giving twice. Leave it off if the QCD is extra giving on top of your budget.
Surviving spouse scenario: real survivor rules, the IRMAA lag, and basis step-up
The surviving spouse scenario now follows the Social Security survivor rules instead of simply keeping the larger check. A survivor under full retirement age gets a reduced survivor benefit, 71.5% at 60 rising to 100% at full retirement age. If the spouse who passed had claimed early, the survivor never gets less than 82.5% of their full benefit. A disabled survivor can claim from 50. Medicare's IRMAA surcharge is now assessed the way Medicare actually does it: against the return from two years back, with the filing status on that return. The single thresholds, and with them the widow's penalty, arrive two years after the death, not the year after. The taxable brokerage account's cost basis now steps up at death, half of the built-up gain in most states and all of it in a community-property state, so the survivor stops paying capital gains tax on gain the tax code forgave. Settings gained a side-by-side comparison of the same scenario with the roles reversed, so a couple can see what happens if person 1 passes first. And the I have lost my partner button now carries your partner's pension survivor benefit into your plan as an income stream and applies the basis step-up, instead of dropping both.
Tighter MAGI math behind every guard, and rental losses now count
An audit of the projection engine found several places where one income source counted toward your taxes but not toward the guards that size Roth conversions, capital gains harvests, and withdrawals. Tax-exempt bond interest, net rental income, current-year other income logged in On Track, and a working spouse's pre-tax 401k contributions are now in every guard base, so a conversion that promises to stay under the ACA cap or an IRMAA tier actually does, and a partial-retirement household fills its target bracket completely instead of leaving a deferral-sized gap. A rental loss now counts too: the deductible part lowers the income the guards see, sized carefully so it can never push you past a cliff. When your other income sits below the standard deduction, the unused deduction is now treated as bracket room, which for a household living off a brokerage account was a full deduction's worth of conversion left on the table every year. The safety margin below your guards is now entered in today's dollars and grows with inflation, so it keeps protecting the same real amount in later years. And the prior-year MAGI estimate used for Medicare premiums when you have not entered one now sees dividend and rental income.
Capital gains harvesting, sized alongside your Roth conversion
If you hold a taxable brokerage account, ThunderHarbor can now recommend how much unrealized gain to realize each year at the 0% federal long-term capital gains rate. Sell a position and immediately buy it back at the same price. Your cost basis resets, so a future sale of those same dollars owes less tax. There's no waiting period to worry about. The wash-sale rule only restricts claiming a loss after a repurchase, not a gain. This is sized after your Roth conversion each year, not independently. Capital gains stack on top of ordinary income for bracket purposes, so a bigger conversion leaves less 0% room for harvesting that same year. Auto mode fills whatever room is left after your conversion. It respects the same IRMAA and ACA subsidy guards your conversion already uses, and it only recommends a harvest when your own future years would otherwise face a higher federal rate on that gain. If your income stays low for the whole plan, it won't recommend harvesting for a benefit that isn't there. Manual mode lets you set your own amount per year instead. Turn it on from the new Capital Gains Harvesting card in Roth Strategy, right below the conversion planner. A year-by-year planner shows the tax impact live as you move the slider, and a closing Bottom Line card totals what both levers are doing together. It works from the taxable account gain estimate you gave at onboarding, not live account or per-ticker data. Log what you harvested each year in On Track, and next year's recommendation adjusts for it, the same way logged spending already corrects future years.
Part-time income now recalibrates from what you log in On Track
Part-time income used to be a single onboarding estimate, an annual number that stayed fixed for the rest of the plan no matter what actually happened. On Track now closes that gap the same way it already does for spending: log real part-time income month by month, and once enough history builds up, the projection blends the logged numbers into the assumption for future years instead of relying only on the original guess. Each spouse recalibrates independently, only counts once that person has actually retired, so income logged while still working full-time doesn't skew the future assumption, and the blend leans more on real data the more months are logged, so a couple of months barely moves it while a couple of years carries real weight. The current calendar year is also corrected immediately from whatever's been logged so far, same as spending, IRA withdrawals, and other actuals. Nothing changes for anyone who hasn't logged part-time income in On Track, this only kicks in as real numbers come in.
Risk Analysis reorganized around five questions
Risk Analysis has grown a lot since it first shipped, so it's now grouped around the five questions it actually answers instead of a long list of cards: what are we testing against, will my plan survive, what if a crash hits right when I retire, what's a safe amount to spend, and what if I stop saving early. Nothing underneath changed, this is a reorganization, not a recalculation, every number is computed exactly the same way it was before.
"Rich, broke, or dead" — a second way to read your success rate
The headline probability-of-success number on Risk Analysis can now be toggled to a plainer breakdown: the same 1,000 simulated outcomes, split into ran out of money before the plan ended, spent it down about right, or ended up with more than you started retirement with. It's the same underlying data as the percentage, "broke" always matches 1 minus your probability of success exactly, just relabeled into something more concrete than a single number.
Current market valuation as a return assumption
Expected Stock Return in Risk Analysis now has a fourth preset alongside Conservative, Historical avg, and Optimistic: Current valuation, based on today's Shiller CAPE ratio. Historically, when the market has been expensive by this measure, the following decade's returns have tended to run lower than the long-run average, and vice versa, a real, moderately reliable pattern, not a precise forecast. This value is updated by hand periodically, not live, so it won't shift between logins, and clicking it only fills the field once, the same as every other preset. It doesn't change anything you've already saved.
Safe Withdrawal Rate Calculator, free and public
A new free, no-login calculator at /swr-calculator: enter a portfolio size, how long retirement needs to last, and a withdrawal rate, and it runs several hundred simulated markets to show a real success rate instead of taking the 4% rule as a flat answer. Like the other public calculators, it's a simplified single-rate estimate, no taxes, no other income, no real stock/bond split, meant as a quick first look before the full plan.
Coast FI age, in two parts
ThunderHarbor now surfaces your coast FI age, the age you could stop contributing to retirement accounts entirely and still reach your number by retirement, on investment growth alone. It shows up in two places on purpose, not one. A new insight card on My Retirement gives you the age itself, off your plan's assumed average return, the same honesty level as every other number in your core plan. It also states that assumption plainly and points at Risk Analysis, because an average-return age is an estimate, not a guarantee, and treating it like a settled fact is exactly how someone stops contributing right before a downturn with no cushion left to absorb it. That is what the new Coast FI Stress Test on Risk Analysis is for: pick a coast age and run it against 1,000 simulated market sequences, side by side with your real plan's success rate at full contributions, to see the actual odds instead of just the smooth average case. A free, no-login Coast FI Calculator is also live on the public site for a quick, simplified estimate before signing up.
Federal Saver's Match eligibility flag
SECURE 2.0's Saver's Match takes effect in 2027: a 50% match on retirement contributions, up to $1,000 per person, for savers with modified AGI below $41,000 (married filing jointly) or $20,500 (single), phasing out by $71,000 married or $35,500 single, both inflation-adjusted going forward. ThunderHarbor now flags years you may qualify, in the Projection Table's Flags column and as a dashboard insight card, based on your projected MAGI and earned income. A second flag calls out the specific case where a Roth conversion, not your underlying income, is what pushes you past the ceiling that year, so it's clear whether the trade-off is coming from your income or from a decision you're making. This doesn't calculate the exact contribution amount or credit it to your balance, Treasury guidance on the mechanics is still pending, it's a heads-up worth confirming with a tax professional, not a certified eligibility determination.
1966 Stagflation Era added to Risk Analysis
The Sequence of Returns chart on Risk Analysis now includes a fourth historical scenario alongside 2008, 2000, and 1929: the 1966-1982 stretch, 17 years where the stock market went nowhere in real terms, a 1966 top, the 1973-74 oil-shock bear market, a partial recovery, then a second shock into 1981-82 before the secular bull market began. Unlike the other three scenarios, it isn't a sharp crash, it's a long grind, and it pairs with the era's double-digit inflation to erode purchasing power on both the stock and bond side. Like the existing scenarios, it shows both a no-bucket line (withdrawals taken proportionally every year) and a bucket-strategy line reflecting your own Bucket 1 setting, so you can see how a cash buffer performs against a slow multi-year grind instead of just a sudden crash.
Updated to the finalized 2027 ACA numbers
IRS and CMS finalized the 2027 ACA subsidy and out-of-pocket schedules, and ThunderHarbor now uses them instead of a flat prior-year table. The premium tax credit table moved modestly, up 2-3% across every income bracket. The maximum out-of-pocket ceiling on a standard Silver plan moved a lot more, up from $10,600 to $12,000 for an individual (13.2%), and from $21,200 to $24,000 for a family. Every ACA-eligible year in your projection, the ACA Income Lever, and the Full Report now reflects the correct year-specific numbers instead of one flat table applied to every year. We also fixed a subtle bug in how the federal poverty level itself was indexed to each coverage year, which had been overstating FPL by about 3% across the board and slightly overstating everyone's ACA subsidy as a result.
Early Medicare for SSDI, ESRD, and ALS
If you qualify for Medicare before 65 because of Social Security Disability, End-Stage Renal Disease, or ALS, you can now set the real age your coverage starts instead of the plan assuming 65 for everyone. The whole projection follows that age from there: Medicare and IRMAA costs begin early, the healthcare bridge section stops showing a coverage gap that does not exist, ACA subsidy eligibility adjusts, and the standard reminder to enroll near 65 is skipped since SSDI and ALS enrollees are auto-enrolled. Set it for either spouse in the Healthcare step of onboarding, or later from your profile. The Full Report and Tax Cliffs tab both reflect the real start date.
Full Report redesign with table of contents
The Full Report now opens with a table of contents you can jump to any section from, and leads with the same at-a-glance summary used in the shorter Plan Summary, so both stay consistent with each other. Sections are reordered to follow the shape of an actual plan review, and the closing section, now called Where I'd Focus, moved to the end so it reads as a wrap-up instead of a warning label.
Site-wide search
A search box in the header now searches across every calculator, guide, blog post, and What's New entry at once, so you can jump straight to what you're looking for instead of digging through menus.
Future income streams and one-time events
You can now model income sources that start in a future year or happen only once, directly inside your retirement projection. Recurring streams cover rental income, consulting, bridge employment, or any income that runs from a start year through an end year, with an optional inflation-adjustment toggle. One-time events cover home sales, inheritance distributions, pension lump sums, and business sales. Each source is classified into one of three tax buckets: ordinary income, capital gains, or tax-free but MAGI-counted. The bucket determines how the amount flows into your tax bracket, IRMAA calculation, ACA subsidy, and Roth conversion headroom. Home sale entries display a note about the primary residence exclusion and ask for the taxable gain rather than the gross sale price. Ordinary income streams reduce Roth conversions by the same dollar so your total MAGI stays flat, which is the correct behavior. The Situation tab shows a summary card with all active sources when any exist. The Tax Cliffs MAGI breakdown adds a dedicated Streams and Events column. The Projection Table adds an Other Income column. Add or edit everything in On Track, under Future Income at the bottom of the page.
Military and veterans benefits: VA disability, military retirement pay, and TRICARE
ThunderHarbor now handles the three main benefit streams for military retirees and veterans. VA disability compensation gets its own income line. Enter your annual amount, toggle on COLA, and the projection treats it as fully tax-free: excluded from federal income, state income, IRMAA, ACA MAGI, and Social Security provisional income. No workarounds needed. Military retirement pay is recognized separately from other pensions. The projection applies the correct state exemption automatically. More than 30 states fully exempt military retirement pay. Georgia, California, New Mexico, and others provide partial exclusions. The right rule for your state is applied without any extra setup. TRICARE replaces ACA marketplace estimates in pre-Medicare years, using 2026 Select and Prime rates. At 65, TRICARE for Life takes over automatically alongside Medicare. The Projection Table adds a VA Disability column, and the Full Report includes VA disability in the lifetime income breakdown. Enter everything under Income, in the Military / veterans benefits section.
Rental real estate income modeling with IRS passive activity loss rules
You can now enter gross rental income and total rental expenses (including depreciation) in your profile. The projection applies full IRS passive activity loss rules automatically: if your rental is a net loss, up to $25,000 is deductible against ordinary income for active participants, phasing out between $100,000 and $150,000 MAGI and suspended above $150,000. The effective net rental amount flows into your MAGI, tax bracket, and Roth conversion headroom calculations year by year. The Roth Strategy tab shows a dedicated line in the MAGI breakdown, and the Risk Analysis tab surfaces context on how your rental position affects the numbers.
Tax-exempt interest income field
Municipal bond interest and similar tax-exempt income can now be entered separately. It does not count as ordinary income for federal tax purposes, but it is included in IRMAA MAGI, ACA MAGI, and Social Security provisional income calculations, which is where it creates real planning friction. The field makes that exposure visible without overstating your taxable income.
Taxable interest and dividend income field
Interest and dividends from brokerage accounts, CDs, money market funds, and similar sources can now be modeled as a recurring annual amount. This income raises your MAGI each year, affecting your tax bracket, Roth conversion room, ACA subsidy eligibility, and IRMAA tier. It is treated as ordinary income throughout the projection.
Bucket strategy comparison in Sequence of Returns chart
The Risk Analysis tab now shows two lines for each historical crash scenario (2008, 2000, and 1929 Great Depression): one without a bucket strategy where withdrawals come proportionally from the portfolio every year, and one with a 3-year cash buffer that pays expenses from cash in down-market years and refills from stocks in up-market years. The gap between the two lines shows how much damage is avoided simply by not being forced to sell at a loss. The Three Bucket Planner tab also has a new explainer card walking through the year-by-year mechanics, including the math: a $100k withdrawal during a 37% decline costs $159k in future value, while the same withdrawal after a 20% recovery costs only $83k.
My Situation redesign with personalized insight cards
The My Situation tab now leads with a set of cards built from your specific numbers: your funded status at a glance, your current tax picture and bracket, your Roth conversion window, any healthcare coverage gap before Medicare, what stage of retirement you are in, and what changed since your last update. Each card links straight to the tab that explains it in depth.
Ask: an AI assistant for your plan
A chat assistant is now available from every tab. Ask it what a number means, why a chart looks the way it does, or how a specific topic like Roth conversions, RMDs, SEPP, or ACA subsidies applies to your plan, and it answers using your actual numbers, not generic advice.
Calendar sync and retirement milestone reminders
Settings now has a Calendar tab that tracks the important dates in your plan, including Social Security start, RMD start age, Medicare enrollment, and any custom events you add. Subscribe to it from Google, Apple, or Outlook so it stays current automatically, or download it as a one-time .ics file. You can also opt in to email reminders as key dates approach.
Income & Balance Flow chart
A combined view of where your spending money comes from each year (Social Security, withdrawals, part-time income) alongside how each account balance grows or draws down over time, so you can see the full cash-flow picture in one chart.
Tax Rate Curve in the Planner
Visualizes your effective and marginal tax rate across a range of income levels, with IRMAA tiers and bracket thresholds marked, so you can see exactly where the next dollar of income (or Roth conversion) lands.
Pension Survivor Benefit Comparison
For households with a pension and a surviving-spouse scenario, Settings now shows a side-by-side comparison of three elections: full survivor benefit, half, and none, each with the resulting portfolio depletion age. Useful for seeing when self-insuring with the portfolio beats paying for a survivor reduction that is often priced conservatively.
In-app feedback and check-in survey
Premium users can now send feedback directly from the account menu, tagged as a feature request, bug, data issue, or general note, with the option to paste in a screenshot. Replies show up as notifications in the app. A short check-in survey also appears from time to time asking about your retirement stage and planning focus, which shapes what gets built next.
Guide library fully updated
All six planning guides have been rewritten with formula-accurate tables, updated figures for 2026 tax brackets and IRS factors, and expanded coverage of every new feature added since the guides were first published. Guides now reference the specific ThunderHarbor tab that handles each planning decision.
Tax Cliffs tab
Shows your projected income against four critical thresholds simultaneously: the ACA subsidy cliff, IRMAA tiers, the Social Security 85% taxation crossover, and the Net Investment Income Tax boundary. Charts them year by year from now through your 90s, so you can see whether a Roth conversion or large withdrawal pushes you across a costly line before you act.
SEPP Planner for early retirees
Models Section 72(t) Substantially Equal Periodic Payments inside your full retirement projection. Compare all three IRS-approved calculation methods, see the required payment and commitment period, and understand how the SEPP income affects your ACA subsidies and IRMAA exposure during the bridge years before 59½.
Inherited IRA Analyzer
Shows the year-by-year depletion schedule for a traditional IRA inherited by a non-spouse beneficiary under the SECURE Act 10-year rule. Calculates the estimated tax cost at different income levels so you can see what your heirs would actually keep, and how much Roth conversions during your lifetime would reduce that bill.
CSV export and import
The Projection Table now has an Export CSV button that downloads your full year-by-year projection, every account balance, tax figure, and income source, as a spreadsheet. On Track can also import a CSV of your actual spending and balances using a downloadable template, so you can bulk-enter real numbers instead of typing each one by hand.
What-If Workshop
Test the financial impact of major life decisions like a large home purchase, a one-time expense, a market downturn, or a change in spending, without touching your main plan. Each scenario runs the full year-by-year projection so you can see the effect on portfolio longevity, tax exposure, and RMD trajectory.
Compare Scenarios
Put two versions of your plan side by side with different retirement ages, Social Security claiming ages, or contribution strategies, and see how they diverge on portfolio balance, lifetime taxes, and monthly income. Designed to make trade-offs concrete rather than abstract.
Monte Carlo Risk analysis
Runs your plan through hundreds of randomized market sequences to show the probability that your portfolio survives to your target age. Displays the range of outcomes (optimistic, median, and stressed) so you can see how much cushion you have and where the vulnerabilities are.
Life & Spending tab
Models how spending changes across retirement phases: the active early years, the slower middle years, and later life when healthcare costs typically rise. You can set different spending rates for each phase and model healthcare cost growth separately from general inflation.
Legacy Planning tab
Projects the estate value passed to heirs under different scenarios, accounting for account types, Roth conversion strategy, and the 10-year inherited IRA rule. Shows how much of your wealth is preserved versus absorbed in taxes depending on how your accounts are structured at death.
Life Design tab
A planning canvas for mapping the non-financial shape of retirement, including geographic moves, second careers, major experiences, and life goals, alongside the financial projection. Helps connect the numbers to the life you are actually planning for.
Concern-aware summary report
Generates a personalized PDF that highlights the specific risks in your plan, including underfunded years, IRMAA exposure, large RMD spikes, and ACA cliff proximity, rather than printing a generic projection. Designed to be useful whether you read it yourself or bring it to a fee-only advisor.
RMD Analyzer extended to age 95
Shows forced withdrawal amounts year by year from age 73 to 95 alongside your tax bracket and IRMAA tier for each year. The table makes visible how RMDs accelerate as the IRS life expectancy factor shrinks each year, something that surprises most people who have not modeled it.
Try the new tools in your plan
Every feature on this page is available inside ThunderHarbor. Free plan covers the core projection and Social Security optimizer. Premium unlocks the full suite.
Open ThunderHarborFree plan included · Full suite with Premium ($47/year)
Social Security optimizer for both spouses
Models every combination of claiming ages for both spouses simultaneously and charts the lifetime income for each pair. Break-even crossover points are shown directly on the chart. The higher earner's claiming age affects the survivor benefit, and the tool makes that impact visible across every combination.