LT & Retirement Accounts
Should my living trust be the beneficiary of my IRA, ROTH IRA and Annity?
I am not married and my niece is the benificiary.
Best,
helen
An important question here is to understand the role of your living trust. Since you say your niece doesn’t anticipate any creditor problems, was the trust intended to protect against imprudent expenditures by your niece? That would be one reason for making the trust the beneficiary of your IRAs and annuity. Another might be to help protect assets in a Medicaid situation. Lacking these reasons, it might be better to just have your niece named as the beneficiary of each IRA and annuity directly.
The successor trustee is the person or organization who is named in your trust to take charge of the trust if you should become incapacitated, or after you pass (hopefully a long time from now).
It would be simpler to name either your niece or (if the amount is sufficient to warrant administering a trust) a trust for the benefit of your niece as the beneficiary of your IRA.
my niece is the beneficiary and also will handle the trust should I become incapacitated. The total amount that I have in accounts is $400,000. I am in the process of buying a home. The reason I even considered my living trust be the beneficiary is because the living trust attorney told me to do that. I want to make it as easy for her as possible and for her to pay the least taxes as possible. My financial advisor had my niece as the benificiary but the attorney told me to have the trust be the benificiary in case she gets sued or married then divorced.
If you want to provide for your niece in a way that protects her inheritance from her creditors and spouses, then you would name a trust for her benefit as the beneficiary of your IRAs. Make sure that the trust qualifies for the stretch.
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Sat, 2017-06-24 04:33
How old is she, and if over 30 is she likely to have creditor problems? Who will be your successor trustee of the trust? In general, what is the projected value of these accounts, over 100K, over 500k, or over 1mm?
Permalink Submitted by helen kerner on Sat, 2017-06-24 23:30
She is 50 now. I don’t see any creditor problems. I am not sure what a successor trustee is. I am unmarried with no children and she is my niece. My total accounts are 500K.