I spent over 30 years as an FAA Air Traffic Controller building up my TSP. Then I looked hard at the tax bill waiting on the other side of it and moved most of my retirement savings into tax-free vehicles. This page is what I found and how the insurance side of it works.
Enter your name and email below and I will send you the exact strategy I used to move out of a taxable TSP and into tax-free retirement income. Updated for the 2026 OBBBA tax law.
Here is what most federal employees never get told: every dollar you contributed to your Traditional TSP is pre-tax money. That feels like a win today. But in retirement, every single withdrawal gets taxed as ordinary income. You did not save that money. You deferred the tax bill on it.
You do not control what tax rates will be when you retire. Congress does.
At age 73, the IRS forces Required Minimum Distributions whether you need the money or not. If your TSP has grown to $500,000 or more, those forced withdrawals could push you into a higher bracket and trigger taxes on your Social Security at the same time.
Suppose you retire with a $900,000 TSP balance, a $35,000/yr FERS pension, and $28,000/yr in Social Security, and you draw $50,000/yr from the TSP to supplement. Here is what that stacks to:
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 2025) made the current federal brackets permanent, added a Senior Bonus Deduction of $6,000 per person 65+ (phased out at $75K MAGI single / $150K joint), and raised the SALT cap to $40,400. What it did not change: traditional TSP withdrawals are still 100% ordinary income, RMDs still start at 73, and IUL still grows tax-deferred and distributes tax-free. Because TSP withdrawals raise MAGI and IUL policy loans do not, OBBBA makes the tax-free counterbalance more valuable for federal employees, not less.
Tax diversification means holding money in at least two types of buckets: taxable and tax-free. Many federal employees have every dollar sitting in taxable buckets and never realize it until the bill arrives.
There is no tax-free bucket anywhere in that lineup.
Cash value grows tax-deferred, credits based on an index with a floor, so a down index year is not credited against you, and you can access it through policy loans that are not reported as taxable income. There are no RMDs and no annual contribution cap the way the TSP has one.
There is still a ceiling, and it matters. Pay in more than the IRS allows for the death benefit and the policy becomes a modified endowment contract, which costs you the loan tax treatment. That treatment also depends on the policy staying in force for life and the loans being managed so it does not collapse. Those three conditions are the strategy, not fine print.
Permanent life insurance has been used this way for a long time. Federal employees rarely get introduced to it, because nobody inside the system is in the business of explaining it.
Traditional banking works like this: you deposit money, the bank lends it out and earns interest, and pays you a fraction back. You are the depositor. The bank profits from your capital. When you need money, you borrow from the bank and pay them interest.
A max-funded IUL changes who is on which side of that. Your premium goes into a cash-value account that grows tax-deferred, credited off a market index. When you need money, you take a policy loan, which comes from the insurance company with your cash value pledged as collateral. Nothing is withdrawn, so the full balance keeps getting credited while the loan is out. You repay on your schedule.
In retirement those loans are not reported as taxable income, and there are no RMDs. That holds as long as three things stay true: the policy never takes in more than the IRS allows for its death benefit, it stays in force for the rest of your life, and the loans are managed so it does not collapse. Let it lapse with a loan outstanding and the gain becomes taxable that year.
A policy loan is not a withdrawal. Your full cash value stays in the policy and keeps getting credited while you borrow against it.
What that is worth to you is the difference between what your balance is credited that year and what the loan charges in interest. Some years that difference works in your favor. In a year the index is flat or down, your credit is zero and the loan still charges interest, so that year it costs you. The strategy lives on that difference, not on getting something for free.
A portion covers the cost of insurance and the policy charges. What is left goes into cash value. When the policy is max-funded, it carries the smallest death benefit the IRS permits for the premium being paid, which keeps those charges low and puts the bulk of your money into cash value instead of buying death benefit.
It is still a life insurance contract, not an investment and not a security. What changes is where your premium goes inside it.
The carrier links your cash value to an index, most commonly the S&P 500. You do not own the index and you are not invested in the market. If the index rises you get a credit, limited by a cap, a participation rate, or a spread depending on the crediting method you choose. If it falls, you are credited zero and the index loss is not subtracted from your cash value.
Caps and participation rates are declared by the carrier and can change over the life of the policy. Ask what the current one is and what the contractual minimum is, because those are two different numbers.
Year after year your credits compound inside the policy with no capital gains and no annual 1099 on the growth, as long as the policy stays in force and stays within the IRS funding limit. Policy charges continue to come out every year, up years and down years alike.
The IRS does not treat a policy loan as income, so a properly managed loan does not create a tax bill. Your balance stays in the policy and keeps getting credited on the full amount while you draw against it.
The loan does charge interest, and unpaid interest adds to the loan balance. That is the part that has to be managed, and it is why this is a designed strategy rather than a thing you set and forget.
A TSP balance is inherited and taxed as ordinary income, and under the SECURE Act most non-spouse heirs have to empty it within ten years. The IUL death benefit transfers income-tax-free while the policy is in force, less anything still owed on a policy loan.
S&P 500 up 14%? You are credited up to your limit, which on a capped strategy is often around 10%. S&P 500 down 20%? You are credited 0%, and that 20% is not subtracted from your cash value.
That is the trade. You give up part of the upside and in exchange a down index year is not credited against you. The limit is what pays for the floor. Policy charges are separate from crediting and come out every year regardless.
I retired from the FAA in 2020 after over 30 years as an Air Traffic Controller. I had built up a substantial TSP balance and thought I had done everything right.
Then I looked hard at what happens to that money in retirement. Every dollar I pulled would be taxed as ordinary income. RMDs would eventually force withdrawals whether I wanted them or not. And I had no tax-free income to offset any of it.
So I moved most of it into tax-free vehicles. That was my decision about my own money, made with my own advisors. Yours is yours to make with people licensed for the accounts you hold.
I also personally own an annuity, multiple investment properties, and the family trust structures behind them.
Carl G. Bullard · Licensed Life Insurance Agent · FL License #W838079 · Licensed in multiple states
I do not sell strategies I have not used myself. If I teach it, I own it.
Michael is 50, a GS-13 with 22 years of service. His TSP is $620,000, all traditional pre-tax. His FERS pension at 57 will pay about $32,000/yr, with roughly $26,000 in Social Security at 67. His original plan was to keep maxing the TSP and draw $4,000/month from it in retirement. That $48,000/yr stacked on his pension and Social Security puts him in the 22% bracket, and over 25 years the tax on those TSP withdrawals alone runs past $200,000.
Michael retires. He stops paying premiums and the policy carries itself from its own cash value, which it can do only while there is enough value to cover the charges. He does not draw from it yet and uses his pension to cover most expenses.
He did not stop his TSP. He redirected money he was already saving in a taxable brokerage account.
Begins drawing $1,500/month in policy loans, which are not reported as taxable income. He cuts TSP withdrawals by $18,000/yr, which drops his taxable income and his tax bill. Because policy loan income does not enter MAGI, he is positioned to keep more of the OBBBA Senior Bonus Deduction once he turns 65.
Now drawing $2,000/month in policy loans. His MAGI lands near $84,000 against his TSP-only neighbor's $102,000 on the same total spending. At these numbers neither one hits Medicare IRMAA, which starts above $109,000 for a single filer in 2026.
What Michael does save is the tax on $18,000 a year of ordinary income he never has to report, plus a larger share of the Senior Bonus Deduction, which phases down 6% for every dollar of MAGI above $75,000. In this example that is roughly $4,500 to $5,000 a year. On a larger TSP balance with larger forced withdrawals, IRMAA does come into play, and the first tier costs $81.20 a month on Part B plus $14.50 on Part D, per person.
Whenever Michael passes, his family receives the death benefit income-tax-free while the policy is in force, less anything still owed on a policy loan. There are no forced withdrawals and no ten-year clock the way there is on an inherited TSP. Under OBBBA's permanent $15M per-person estate tax exemption, federal estate tax is not a factor for the vast majority of federal retirees.
Michael's IUL did not replace his TSP. It became the tax-free counterbalance that gave him choices his TSP alone never could.
This is a hypothetical illustration for education, not a projection and not a promise. Michael is not a real client. The figures assume a 6.5% average annual indexed credit, which is an assumption and not a guarantee. Actual crediting depends on index performance and on caps, participation rates, and spreads that the carrier declares and can change. Policy charges reduce cash value every year. Results vary with age, health, underwriting, policy design, funding level, and how the loans are managed. Tax figures reflect federal law as of 2026 and may change. Run your own numbers with your CPA before deciding anything.
Neither the TSP nor an IUL is right for every dollar. The goal is to have both, one building pre-tax wealth, the other building wealth you can access without a tax bill.
Read the cost row honestly. The TSP is one of the cheapest retirement vehicles in the country and nothing here beats it on fees. What it does not have is a tax-free bucket. That is the trade, and it is the whole argument.
The strongest federal retirement plans are not TSP or IUL. They are TSP and IUL, structured so your taxable income stays in the lowest bracket you can manage while your total income stays where you need it.
Minimum-funded, an IUL underperforms, and plenty have been sold that way. That is a sales problem, not a product problem. Max-funded and properly designed, it does a job no pre-tax account can do, which is produce income that does not show up on a 1040.
It is not free and it is not for everyone. Ask any agent, me included, to show you the illustration at the guaranteed column, not just the projected one. If they will not, walk.
FEGLI is term coverage. It is inexpensive while you are working and it builds no cash value, and the premiums on the optional coverage climb steeply with age. An IUL is a permanent life insurance contract designed so that most of the premium goes to cash value rather than death benefit. Different tools, different jobs, and this is not an argument to drop FEGLI.
Most federal employees are not putting every discretionary dollar into the TSP. Taxable brokerage money, savings, an underperforming old policy, those are the dollars this usually comes from. Never at the expense of your TSP match, which is free money and should be funded first, every time.
The Roth TSP is genuinely strong and it costs almost nothing to own, which an IUL cannot say. If you are choosing one, and you have not maxed the Roth TSP, max it.
Where an IUL adds something is above that ceiling: the same $24,500 cap applies to the Roth TSP, its death benefit is only your balance, and it has no living benefit riders. An IUL has no annual cap short of the MEC limit, credits with a floor under it, and carries a death benefit larger than what you paid in. Those are additions to a Roth TSP, not replacements for it.
OBBBA did not touch IRC §7702, §101(a), or §72(e). Cash value still grows tax-deferred, policy loans are still not reported as income while the policy stays in force and within the funding limit, and the death benefit still passes income-tax-free. What OBBBA did do: permanent brackets, the Senior Bonus Deduction, a $15M per-person estate exemption, and a higher SALT cap. Tax law can change again, which is an argument for having money in more than one tax bucket rather than betting everything on one.
We will map your TSP tax exposure, model your income layers, and look at whether an insurance-based tax-free bucket fits alongside your federal benefits. No pressure. No obligation. Just math and a plan.
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Carl G. Bullard is a licensed life insurance agent (FL #W838079), licensed in multiple states, and an independent agent with Global Financial Impact (GFI). He is not an attorney, a CPA, or a registered investment adviser. All content is educational, is not individualized financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and is not a recommendation to transfer any security or retirement account, including a TSP or 401(k).
Life insurance and annuity products are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed, and may lose value. Guarantees rest solely on the issuing carrier's claims-paying ability. Coverage is subject to underwriting and is available only where the agent is licensed. Death benefits apply only while the policy is in force and are reduced by any outstanding loan. Tax-free distribution treatment requires that the contract not be a modified endowment contract, that the policy stay in force, and that loans be managed; tax law may change, so consult your own CPA. Caps, participation rates, and spreads are declared by the carrier and may change, and surrender charges apply in the early policy years. Replacing an existing policy or annuity may not be in your best interest and is subject to state replacement regulations. Individual results vary.
Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the FRTIB, the Thrift Savings Plan, OPM, the FAA, or any U.S. government agency.