Hi All,
I’ve read through some of the past posts on this topic, but I’m hoping the experts can shed some light on a few questions I didn’t see answered in those posts.

Spouse’s 92-year old husband passed away in mid-2022. Later in 2022 the former advisor rolled husband’s IRA into a beneficiary IRA for 88-year old spouse. Wife was the sole IRA beneficiary. Not sure why the former advisor didn’t roll husband’s IRA into a Spousal IRA. Husband did take his RMD in 2022. Husband’s birthday was in July 1929. Wife’s birthday was in Jan 1935.

Here are my questions:
1. Does it matter that wife finished 2022 with a beneficiary IRA, but we really want to roll this to a Spousal IRA now?
2. Any problems with a 5498 getting issued for 2022 showing a beneficiary IRA existed at end of 2022? Is the IRS going to make wife take a beneficiary IRA RMD because she had this beneficiary IRA at end of 2022?
3. Are there specific IRS regulations or other precedents that backup your answers to my questions?

As far as I can tell, the beneficiary IRA RMD factor is 6.6 vs a 13.7 for her own spousal IRA, so roughly double RMD amount. For a large six-figure IRA, the beneficiary IRA RMD is not tax friendly for someone now having to file as Single (she has no dependents and doesn’t qualify for QW) at this advanced age.

Thank you for your IRA Help!

Jim