Credit shelter trust

I’m hoping to get some clarification on what RMD table a surviving spouse would use when she is named as the primary beneficiary inside of her husband’s Credit shelter trust. Where the CST is the primary and only beneficiary of the husbands IRA. In this case, the husband passed away and named his CST as the primary beneficiary of his IRA. His wife is the primary beneficiary of this trust. He also named his daughter as a surviving beneficiary after his wife dies. The wife and daughter are the only two beneficiaries of the trust. The wife is the same age as her now deceased husband. When the husband passed away he was already taking RMD’s and had already taken his RMD in 2024. My question is, does the surviving spouse continue to use her life expectancy for future RMD’s, or is she now because she was named through a CST have to use the Table of a single life individual to determine her RMD amounts? Thank you so much.



She must use the single life table. If this is set up as a conduit trust, she could “recalculate” her divisor each year by re -entering the table, meaning she is treated as a sole spousal beneficiary. If the trust is an accumulation trust, then the spouse is not treated as the sole beneficiary, but if she is the oldest trust beneficiary, her single life table divisor would have to be reduced by 1.0 each successive year.



Alan, thank you so much for your clear and concise response. It is much appreciated. Michael



Add new comment

Log in or register to post comments