60 Day Rollover Planning

FACTS:

Husband client age 80 has $1,000,000 Traditional IRA. His wife age 83 has $500,000 traditional IRA.

Husband on 5-26-2017 withdrew $178,000 from his Traditional IRA in order to have funds to close on the purchase of a home (the financing fell through at the last minute). His intention at the time of the IRA withdrawal was to attempt to finance again and if successful rollover the $178,000 back into his IRA within 60 days of 5-26-2017 to avoid income taxation.

At present it is not clear if the financing will go through in time to put the $178,000 back into his IRA prior to the 60 day rollover deadline.

PLANNING: As such, client’s wife wants to withdraw $178,000 from her IRA, then transfer the funds from her individual checking account to her husband’s individual checking account. Then the husband would wire the $178,000 from his checking account to the IRA custodian prior to the 60 day rollover deadline. When the financing closes, the $178,000 would be rolled back into the wife’s IRA prior to the 60 day rollover deadline to avoid income taxation.

QUESTION: Is there any reason to believe that using funds from the wife’s IRA to put back into husband’s IRA to complete the rollover within the 60 day period would not be acceptable to the IRS?

Thanks,

David



Each individual has one 60 day rollover within a 12 month period and there are no rules that spouses cannot collaborate on their rollovers. So this should not be a problem unless the financing is not complete before her 60 day period elapses. That said, real estate transactions are frought with such risks and using IRA money presents a risk of not being able to complete the rollover. In addition, since the first distribution for each of them in 2017 must be applied to their RMD, if the RMDs have not been previously completed only the amount in excess of the RMD may be rolled back into the IRAs. Of course, no further 60 day rollovers are allowed for either of them within the 12 months following these distributions.

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