IRA Trust Question

Decedent’s revocable trust (the “Trust”) owns cash (proceeds from the sale of a home) and is the beneficiary of a retirement account. The Trust provides that specific bequests totaling $30,000 are to be made to certain individuals and a charity and the remaining assets are to be held in trust for the benefit of the decedent’s parents. The trust for the decedent’s parents contains conduit language with respect to the retirement assets. With the thought that the proceeds from the sale of the house would be more than enough to cover the specific bequests the Trustee of the Trust funded the retirement account benefit into the trust for the parents so they could begin receiving the minimum required distributions from the retirement account. It turns out that the house sold for less than originally thought and after paying the debts of the decedent the cash owned by the Trust will not be sufficient to cover the specific bequests. Is there a way to pull cash from the retirement account to cover the specific bequests without causing significant tax and MRD issues?



  • I can’t think of a way to do that.
  • Why run the retirement benefits through a revocable trust instead of simply leaving them to or in trust for the desired beneficiaries?
  • Why use a conduit trust?  That forces out all of the assets and throws them into the beneficiaries’ estates, and exposes them to the beneficiaries’ creditors and spouses, and Medicaid.
  • Since the parents are older than the participant or IRA owner, that will limit the stretch.
  • Bruce Steiner

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