Spousal trust beneficiary of a Roth IRA with the trust as primary beneficiary.
My client has a Roth IRA and she wants to draft a trust to be the primary beneficiary of her Roth IRA. Her husband has a mild mental disorder and would be the primary beneficiary of the trust, but not the trustee. He doesn’t receive government benefits, so a special needs trust is likely not necessary. Our question is will he have to start taking beneficiary Roth RMDs (over his lifetime or all within 5 years) when he inherits the Roth IRA as a beneficiary of the trust?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Sat, 2019-08-24 00:00
If the trust meets the qualifications for look through treatment, the trust can take RMDs using Table I with his life expectancy as long as he is the oldest beneficiary of the trust including remainder beneficiaries. If the trust fails qualification, then the 5 year rule will apply.
Permalink Submitted by Bruce Steiner on Sat, 2019-08-24 11:13
Permalink Submitted by Tim Hammond on Sat, 2019-08-24 18:10
Thank you for the replies. So I take it that, as beneficiary of the trust, her spouse cannot avoid Roth RMD’s during his lifetime as he could avoid them if he were a direct spousal beneficiary of the Roth IRA, correct?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Sat, 2019-08-24 19:12
Yes, that is correct. With respect to the trust RMDs, if the trust allows accumulation of those RMDs as expected then he is not treated as the sole trust beneficiary and the RMDs from Table I must begin in the year following her death even if she passed prior to 70.5, and in addition the beneficiary RMD divisor would not be “recalculated” using his LE each year. The divisor would have to be reduced by 1.0 each successive year. Therefore, the Roth would be distributed even faster than if he inherited outright and did not elect ownership.