The Income Annuities page lets you add annuity income streams - contracts that pay you a monthly benefit, either for life or for a stated term. Each source can be assigned to you or your spouse. Employer / government / union pensions live on the Pensions page.

For each annuity, enter the monthly benefit, the age the payments begin, and any cost-of-living adjustment built into the contract. If the annuity has no COLA, leave it at 0% - many fixed annuities don't escalate, and the loss of real purchasing power over a long retirement is a real consideration when comparing options.

Annuity kind - mostly a label. Pick whichever fits best:

• Existing annuity income - the default. Use it for annuity payments you already receive (or will receive from a contract you already own) when you don't need to model a purchase.
• SPIA / immediate income annuity - a Single Premium Immediate Annuity. Use this when you want to model an upfront premium converted into a stream of income.
• Period-certain annuity - an annuity that pays for a fixed number of years rather than for life. Pair this with Payout type = Period certain below.

Purchase status - applies to all annuity kinds.

• Already purchased / owned (default): the planner models only the income. Do not also include the assets used to buy this annuity as normally invested portfolio assets, or your plan will double-count them.
• Planned future purchase: will model the premium as a future portfolio withdrawal, then model the annuity payments. The premium is withdrawn at the purchase age using the same priority that funds any other one-time outflow (Taxable -> Tax-deferred -> Tax-free -> Cash, modified by each account's Draw Priority setting). Income then begins at the Start age above. The gap between purchase age and start age is what makes a DIA / deferred income annuity useful: buy at 60, income starts at 70.

Payout type

• Lifetime (default): payments continue indefinitely. For self / spouse-owned records the engine still respects owner mortality.
• Period certain: payments stop after the End age you enter (inclusive - payments continue through that age, then stop). Beneficiary continuation past the term isn't modeled.

When the annuity starts - the Start age uses calendar-year-of-age semantics: payments begin on January 1 of the calendar year the owner reaches that age, and the engine credits a full 12 months of payments in that year regardless of which month the birthday falls in.

Tax treatment

• Fully taxable (default): every dollar of the payment hits ordinary income.
• Not taxable: cash flow only - never taxed (e.g., an HRA or certain disability annuities).
• Partially taxable: enter the taxable percentage of each payment (0-100). The planner taxes that share as ordinary income and treats the rest as non-taxable cash flow. Retirement Figures does not calculate the IRS exclusion ratio - look up your contract's number and enter it.

Modeling decisions you're still comparing - if you haven't committed to buying yet, the Pension Optimizer can help you compare a monthly income stream to a lump-sum alternative on a break-even / required-return basis.

What this page doesn't model yet - cash refund / installment refund features, life-with-period-certain, joint survivor percentage on annuities, QLAC-specific rules, automatic exclusion ratio calculation, and live SPIA quotes. If any of those matter for your contract, email info@retirementfigures.com.