Oh, I keep forgetting this part:

"My client, age 57"

We don't know your taxpayer's financial position at this time, of course. Waiting until the final year to take a full dsitribution likely will be quite a hit to their taxable income. I typically advise people to start looking at how they can control IRMAA starting around your client's age. They can take distributions until the year they are 62, for example, because 63 and 64 are the lookback years for IRMAA. That's only 5 or 6 years, then, to evaluate their projected taxable income and how the taxable distributions will affect them leading up to Medicare.