Husband dies with no TIRA Beneficiary

Submitted by Robert Wright on Wed, 2015-10-07 15:04

A husband died after his RBD with no beneficiary on his TIRA.

The estate is the beneficiary.

I understand that the RMD is based on the life expectancy of the deceased and that RMDs must commence by 12/31 of the year following the year of death.

Question: What age of the deceased is used? Do you use the age the deceased would have been in the year following the year of death or the age of the deceased in the year of death?

So if the deceased died in 2015 and was 75 in 2015, do you use a LE of 13.4 or do you use the LE based on the deceased’s age in 2016: age 76 and a LE = 12.7

And do you use the minus 1 formula for years 2+?



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2015-10-07 15:58

  • If the surviving spouse is the sole beneficiary of the estate and in some other situations, there are numerous letter rulings allowing the surviving spouse to roll the IRA into their own name. The RMDs would then follow the rules for an IRA owner.
  • Otherwise, the age of the decedent as of 12/31 of the year of death is used to determine an RMD divisor from Table I, and that divisor is reduced by 1.0 for each successive RMD year. Therefore the first beneficiary RMD in the year following the year of death is that Table I divisor less 1.0. In your example, the divisor would be 12.4 for the first beneficiary RMD due no later than 12/31 in the year following the year of death. The year after that would have a divisor of 11.4. The estate is also responsible for completing the year of death RMD if the decedent did not. If executor assigns the IRA to the estate beneficiaries, the RMD calculation does not change.

Submitted by Robert Wright on Wed, 2015-10-07 18:38

Thanks Alan.

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