Inheriting an Inherited IRA
Mother passed away (she was over 70-1/2). Son (over age 70-1/2) inherits her IRA. Begins taking distribution based on her life. He then passes away and his spouse inherits this inherited IRA. Spouse is over 70-1/2. How is the RMD calculated for the spouse?
Permalink Submitted by Jose Morales on Fri, 2015-11-20 19:38
Distributions continue the same as before, using the same calculation method. Although I would like to point out that the son should have been using his own single life expectancy and reducing by one each year when calculating his beneficiary RMD.
Permalink Submitted by David Mertz on Fri, 2015-11-20 20:02
The successor beneficiary must continue taking distributions based on the deceased son’s Table I life expectancy in the year following the year of his mother’s death, reduced by one for each subsequent year. The son inappropriately calculating the RMD using his mother’s age simply resulted in more being distributed each year than was required.
Permalink Submitted by David Mertz on Fri, 2015-11-20 22:38
Note that my reply assumes that the mother was the owner of the IRA (“her IRA”). If the mother was receiving distributions as beneficiary of some other owner’s IRA and the son was a successor beneficiary himself, it was proper for the son to be continuing his mother’s RMD calculation and the successor beneficiary to the son would also continue to use the mother’s RMD calculation.