Husband inherits TIRA from wife
Wife passed away in June 2017 and owned one TIRA.
Wife is 77 years old in 2017.
Wife has not completed her 2017 RMD.
Husband is 100% primary beneficiary.
Must the deceased wife’s 2017 RMD be completed before rolling the balance of her TIRA into a TIRA owned by the surviving husband (spousal rollover)?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2017-08-01 17:38
Many custodians want the year of death RMD distributed before rollovers for purposes of clarity. However, this is not an IRS requirement. Since there are different ways for the surviving spouse to acquire ownership of the inherited IRA, only one of which is an actual 1099R distribution which would include the year of death RMD, methods such as assumption of ownership or direct trustee transfer to an owned IRA that are not distributions can be done without the RMD first being distributed. However, the year of death RMD remains the responsibility of the surviving spouse and the RMD can be completed by taking the correct year of death RMD from one of surviving spouse’s owned IRAs. Despite considerable confusion over this issue, there is rarely a problem as long as the year of death RMD is actually completed.