BOULDER, CO, Sept. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Income Lab, a leading provider of financial planning and income distribution software for financial advisors, today launched the Withdrawal Optimizer, a new tool that helps advisors determine how to fund unexpected client cash needs while accounting for the client’s existing financial plan, holdings, income and tax situation. The tool helps advisors answer one of the most common and challenging questions they get: When a client needs money outside of their planned withdrawals, where should it come from and what are the consequences?
Available to Income Lab Pro subscribers within Penny, the firm’s tactical intelligence platform, the Withdrawal Optimizer identifies which accounts and holdings will fund a requested withdrawal, conforming to any important preferences and constraints, and accounting for the client’s tax situation.
Whether a client needs funds for a major purchase, medical expense or family obligation, advisors have traditionally relied on home-grown spreadsheets and tactical tax analysis tools to evaluate the request. The Withdrawal Optimizer brings that analysis into a single integrated workflow with full access to the household’s account holdings and full financial plan.
“This is the kind of question advisors receive every week,” said Johnny Poulsen, Chief Executive Officer of Income Lab. “Clients are just asking for a check. They don’t realize how complex this gets or the tax pitfalls that advisors have to watch out for if they give this advice in a vacuum. The Withdrawal Optimizer helps advisors evaluate options and tradeoffs and land on a specific action plan taking the full context into account.”
This new capability evaluates withdrawal options across multiple planning considerations, including tax brackets, Medicare surcharges, holdings and account selection and preferences, gain and loss harvesting, tax withholdings, required minimum distributions and charitable giving strategies. Results render instantly and update as assumptions change, making the analysis available during a client conversation rather than afterward.
The Withdrawal Optimizer operates on a household’s actual securities holdings. Through Income Lab’s integrations with custodians and other parts of the advisor tech stack, the platform can analyze positions at the ticker and tax-lot level, enabling advisors to evaluate specific holdings rather than broad asset allocations.
One area of focus is Medicare’s Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA), where relatively small increases in income can result in significantly higher premiums. The Withdrawal Optimizer shows advisors where those thresholds exist before a withdrawal pushes a client into a higher surcharge tier and allows them to make a plan that keeps income below those thresholds.
“Ordinary tax on the withdrawal is rarely the whole cost,” Poulsen said. “Additional income can affect Medicare premiums because of Medicare’s income lookback period, and it can also affect eligibility for certain income-based tax credits and benefits. Computing this on the household’s actual holdings within the client’s broader plan helps advisors see those tradeoffs before a decision is made.”
The Withdrawal Optimizer is available today to Income Lab Pro subscribers in Penny’s Tax Tools. Additional information is available on the Withdrawal Optimizer product page. Technical documentation is also available in the Income Lab Help Center.
About Income Lab
Income Lab builds retirement planning and income distribution software for financial advisors. The platform combines guardrails-based spending capacity analysis, tax optimization, Social Security claiming strategies, and ongoing plan monitoring into a single tool. Income Lab serves a growing base of advisory firms across the United States. For more information, visit incomelaboratory.com.
Media contact For Income Lab Lisa Aldape VOCATUS laldape@vocatusllc.com
