no contingent beneficary

Clients Father died, ( account at another firm) His Mother is the beneficiary. There are no contingent beneficiaries listed. Can she still disclaim the assets?



The IRA agreement needs to be checked to see who the default beneficiary is. Most likely it will be father’s estate resulting in the beneficiaries under his will receiving the IRA. Even if those beneficiaries are the people his mother wants to inherit the IRA, their stretch will be limited because an estate is not a designated beneficiary. The 5 year rule will apply if father passed prior to his RBD. If he passed after his RBD, then the inherited IRA(s) will have to be distributed over his remaining single life expectancy. Put another way, if the children are the beneficiaries under his will, they will not get anywhere near the stretch they would get had they been named as contingent beneficiaries.

What if the IRA account had NO named Contingent Beneficiary, but was opened with the “Per Stirpes” designation?  Would this allow the primary beneficiary to Disclaim, AND allow the children via the Per Stirpes to stretch the distributions past the 5 year window? (Deceadant was 92 and had been taking RMDs for years).

Yes, if the mother’s issue are the contingent beneficiaries.  What does the beneficiary designation say?

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