Cancelling an IRA Rollover

A new client of mine just liquidated two IRA accounts that he had with a previous advisor because he was reluctant to tell the advisor that he was ending his relationship with him. We expected to complete a 60-day rollover for him, When the client presented me with the checks to deposit into his new IRA, my broker-dealer notified me of the new IRA rollover rule, as of January 2015, that only one 60-day rollover (1 IRA to 1 IRA) can be completed in a 12-month period. Neither of these checks have been deposited into the new IRA at this point but both of the surrendering custodians don’t want to cancel the distribution, saying that they simply followed the client instructions. While we can complete a 60-day rollover for one of those checks, there has got to be come way to avoid the other from being treated as a taxable distribution. How can I get the other custodian to void the distribution?



There is a work around. One of the checks can be rolled over to a TIRA and the other to a Roth IRA. A rollover to a Roth IRA (conversion) is not subject to the one rollover rule. Afterwards, the Roth conversion can be recharacterized back to the TIRA and both checks will be back in a TIRA account.

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