I apologize if this has been answered before, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.

Can a man name his wife’s IRA as beneficiary of his own IRA? The thought was that, at the time of the man’s death, the wife might be incapacitated and unable to roll the IRA into her own, or she might simply forget to do so before her death.

I didn’t see anything in Pub. 590 that specifically prohibits it, but I may have missed it. It would seem similar to naming a trust as beneficiary. While it might disservice a wife under 59 1/2 by preventing her from taking a distribution without penalty under the death exception, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not possible to to.

My thinking is that IRS would say that the wife would need to make an affirmative decision to roll the IRA into her own, but I could be convinced otherwise.