THe 401k RMD is based on the surviving spouse’s life expectancy, using the age she would attain in the year following her husband’s death OR if she is older she can use her husband’s remaining life expectancy. This can get tricky because if she uses her own life expectancy she enters the table each year, but if she uses his she will have to subtract 1.0 from the divisor each year. This makes it possible for her RMDs to be lower starting with his remaining life expectancy but at some point it would be lower if she switched over to hers. For the year of his death, if he did not complete his RMD, the balance of his RMD should be distributed to her before the end of that year.

If she continues to take RMDs from the plan using the single life table (based on either age), her RMDs will be considerably higher than if she rolled the plan over to her own IRA. From there she could use the Uniform Table which will produce much lower RMDs. Also, her successor beneficiaries will get their own life expectancy stretch after she passes if they inherit her IRA. But if they inherit the 401k plan, they will have to continue her RMD schedule and will not be able to use their own life expectancy.

If she is maintaining the 401k because she is under 59.5 and wants to get penalty free distributions, she can do the same thing by rolling the plan over to an inherited IRA instead of her own IRA, maintain it as inherited until she reaches 59.5 and then assuming ownership of the IRA.

The proper RMD here is very dependent on her age. What was her age in the year he passed, and what age would he have been if he lived all year?

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