Inherited IRA to Traditional IRA
Can a spouse who inherites an IRA and takes it as a beneficiary IRA as opposed to their own traditional IRA trustee transfer it to their own traditional IRA once the RMD is completed for the year from the account they inherited?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Fri, 2019-09-06 19:39
If the surviving spouse is the sole beneficiary, they can elect to assume ownership anytime they wish. If this is done anytime after the year of death, the RMD for that year is calculated as if the surviving spouse owned the IRA the entire year. If the surviving spouse would have owed a beneficiary RMD, electing ownership will reduce that RMD to an owner RMD using the Uniform Table. Electing ownership will usually result in the custodian transferring the balance to a newly titled owned IRA. If a distribution is taken from an inherited IRA, it must be appled to any inherited IRA RMD and the surviving spouse is subject to the one rollover limitation for the rest of the balance, therefore direct trustee transfers should be used when ownership is elected or an account is being moved to another owned IRA account to avoid unnecessary beneficiary account RMDs.