RMD’s for Spouse under 70 1/2

Submitted by Krista McBeath on Wed, 2016-08-10 17:43

My client, in his 80’s, just passed away. Wife is sole beneficiary and she is under 70 1/2. No RMD has been taken yet for 2016. She is electing spousal continuation on all of his IRA’s, 2 of the IRA’s will be transferred to a new custodian where an IRA has been established in her name. Is she required to take a RMD for 2016? If so, since she is >10 years younger, could she use the spousal table for a few of his IRA’s and use the uniform table for the others, or does it have to be consistent across IRA’s?



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2016-08-10 18:54

  • Yes, she must withdraw the 2016 RMD in the same amount that her husband needed to distribute had he lived. He is considered to have lived the entire year. Therefore, his year of death RMD on IRAs for which she is the sole beneficiary would be calculated as before using Table II. If there are other IRAs on which she is NOT the sole beneficiary, Table III would apply to those IRA accounts.
  • She could still aggregate the RMDs, meaning that the total RMD for all accounts even though calculated from different tables can be taken in any combination from these inherited IRAs included taking the total RMD from just one of the inherited IRAs.
  • While the IRS does not seem to care as long as the RMD is distributed, it is preferable for her to take the year of death RMD before the accounts are rolled over to her own IRA.


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