SmartAsset and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. Anyone with a 401(k), traditional IRA or similar tax-deferred retirement account eventually is going to face the requirement to start taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) from their accounts. The IRS has allowed you to have what can be decades of tax-free growth in the account, along with years of tax deductions, so they eventually requiring you to start paying those taxes, regardless of whether yo ...