Inherited IRA from spouse

Submitted by Gene Vance on Mon, 2018-12-03 20:55

My wife died last year at age 82. I inherited her IRA last year. I am age 86, and have not remarried. What IRS table do I use for my RMD this year, Table 1, or Table 3 ?. I note that Table 3 includes the category “unmarried owners”. Do I qualify for this category?



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Mon, 2018-12-03 23:03

  • Yes, you should contact the IRA custodian and elect to assume ownership of the inherited IRA. If you do that this year, your RMD will be calculated from Table 3 and be much lower than an RMD from Table 1 if you continued to treat the account as inherited. In addition, doing this will assure that your beneficiary will get a full life expectancy stretch. If your beneficiary inherited an IRA from you that was still titled as inherited, that beneficiary could only continue your much higher RMD schedule using Table 1.
  • After you assume ownership of the inherited IRA, you can combine it with any IRA of yours that you have owned all along. Do that by direct trustee transfer so you do not use up your one permitted 60 day rollover.
  • Also, if your wife did not complete her 2017 RMD before passing, you are responsible for completing her RMD which would have been calculated using her age at the end of 2017 and Table 3.

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