Qualified Proportional IRA disclaiming limitations

Our recently deceased father had an IRA account which he had equally designated his two sons, A and B, as the primary beneficiaries on his account application and Agreement. Our father had marked “to this primary beneficiaries estate” under “If this beneficiary dies before you, indicate how you want this portion to be paid.” Also note, the space for contingent beneficiary was left completely blank hence no contingent beneficiary had been named in the form. Unfortunately in this case nor had the box been marked for “to the other remaining primary beneficiaries named on this form.” Beyond this, the agreement states “any interest in this IRA that is not effectively disposed of by the beneficiary designation I make in this Application or any subsequent beneficiary designation will be paid to my survivng spouse, and if no surviving spouse, to my estate” For this reason we believe we require a proportional disclaimer be created to meet both federal, and state (NY & NJ in our case) requirements in which son A disclaims approximately 54% of his 50%, and so that son B can stretch and receive 77% of the IRA. Could such disclaiming work either legally or for tax purposes given the above factors on the account application and agreement, and if so would any attorney be able to draft such a qualified disclaimer?



What else does the agreement say? Anything to clarify the situation if A does NOT pre decease? I don’t think A’s estate can exist until A passes.

Therefore, the agreement would have to be carefully analyzed to determine if a qualified disclaimer would result in a portion going to B before pursuing that avenue.

Drafting the disclaimer is the easy part. We, and probably most other tax/estates lawyers, do lots of them. But the lawyer should review the documents to verify your analysis.

Bruce Steiner, attorney
NYC
also admitted in NJ and FL

Thank you Alan, and thank you Bruce. I really appreciate the help. Please feel free to add anytime you get some ideas. I guess this was more challenging than I thought.

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