Taxes: 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction (post-OBBBA). Long-term capital gains stack on top of ordinary income — filling the 0% LTCG bracket is a real opportunity in low-income years. Trad IRA withdrawals before 59½ incur a 10% penalty. Roth conversions count as ordinary income in the year of conversion. State tax is a flat rate on ordinary income only (real state codes vary). RMDs checked starting at age 73 via the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table.

Inflation: When ON, expenses, the SS benefit amount, withdrawal targets, tax brackets, and the standard deduction all grow at the assumed rate each year. Critically, the Social Security taxability thresholds ($25k/$32k single/MFJ) do NOT inflate — they're statutory, frozen since 1983. Over time this pushes more retirees into the "SS tax torpedo" where 85% of benefits become taxable. Investment returns are nominal (your "5%" stays 5% nominal; real return = nominal − inflation). Withdrawal slider amounts and the expense slider are interpreted as today's dollars and inflated forward internally. Toggle "Today's $" / "Nominal $" to switch the chart and metric display.

ACA subsidies (pre-65): Modeled using 2025 FPL guidelines ($15,650 single, +$5,500/person). The 2026 cliff regime restores pre-ARPA rules — full subsidy phaseout from 100%–400% FPL, hard cliff above. The enhanced regime (if Congress extends) caps benchmark premiums at 8.5% of MAGI with no cliff. Net health insurance cost = benchmark premium − subsidy, which we subtract from net spendable. This is a simplification: real subsidies depend on benchmark plan cost, age, and geography; we use a single-premium slider as a proxy. The big idea: Roth conversions push MAGI up. A $20k conversion at 405% FPL can cost $5–15k in lost subsidies — often more than the 22% federal tax. The optimizer accounts for this.

Phases: The withdrawal plan is split into age bands anchored to multiples of 5 (60 = penalty-free traditional withdrawals, 65 = Medicare, 73 = RMDs), plus an extra split at your Social Security start age so no band mixes pre-SS and post-SS years. With SS at 67 the 65–69 band becomes 65–66 and 67–69, each with its own sliders. Moving the SS age re-slices the cards but carries your entered amounts across by age; changing the retirement age rebuilds them from age-appropriate defaults.

Optimizer: Runs a fixed set of named strategies through the same simulator and ranks them by your objective. Each strategy is a deterministic rule (e.g., "fill the 12% bracket each year"); the optimizer doesn't search continuously. Strategies that break the 5-year Roth seasoning rule before 59½ are flagged with a warning badge.