Joint owners of an IRA

Submitted by Ron Wilson on Wed, 2017-11-01 10:14

In a family discussion about inheriting their father’s Traditional and Roth IRAs, the adult children asked if they could become joint owners of the IRAs. Is this possible?
RBW



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2017-11-01 15:32

  • No, all IRA owners and beneficiaries must be individuals. When they inherit they should create separate inherited IRA accounts no later than 12/31 of the year following the year of their father’s death. They can each use their own life expectancy for RMDs, name their own beneficiaries, and control the investments in their accounts.
  • If they fail to create separate accounts, the custodian will probably do it anyway once they have the beneficiary info and a death cert. to make accounting easier since each distribution or RMD must be paid under the SSN of the receiving beneficiary, and a 1099R will be issued for each beneficiary for reporting on their respective tax returns. If one beneficiary submits info and the other does not, the custodian will create a separate account for the one providing the info, which leaves the other beneficiary as the sole beneficiary on the original account. 

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