RMD In Year of Death
If someone is born 08/31/1946 and dies 06/05/2018, so a few months after turning 70 1/2. Does the RMD for their traditional IRA need to be taken in 2018? Or since the RBD is 04/01/19, the IRA can be absorbed by the spouse, who turned 70 on 04/12/18, and the RMD taken as a single amount by the spouse in 2019, since the accounts will now be a single IRA owned by the spouse, who will have turned 70 1/2 on 10/12/18?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2018-07-10 22:41
This IRA owner passed AFTER the required beginning date, which was 4/1/2018, not 2019. Therefore, the surviving spouse is responsible for completing the 2018 RMD. The Regs do not make the surviving spouse responsible for RMDs for years prior to the year of death, and it would be extremely rare for the IRS to pursue a penalty from the estate regarding the 2017 RMD, therefore you are pretty safe in ignoring the 2017 RMD if you want to, at least until the IRS sends an inquiry which is unlikely. If the surviving spouse elects to assume ownership of the inherited IRA this year, they remain responsible for taking the year of death RMD by 12/31/2018, and in 2019 the RMD would be based on the age of the surviving spouse. The surviving spouse cannot delay the 2018 RMD until 2019 because it is the deceased spouse’s RMD, not the surviving spouse’s.