Trustee of IRA Trust

Submitted by Beverly Bonya on Thu, 2019-06-20 16:25

Are there any complications with naming the surviving spouse as trustee and primary beneficiary of an IRA trust with mandated distributions of RMDs, plus distrectionary distributions of additional amounts subject to a discretionary standard? The remainder beneficiaries are children of the deceased spouse, but not the surviving spouse/beneficiary.



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Thu, 2019-06-20 18:50

It would be problematic to have the surviving spouse as trustee when there are discretionery distributions and investment control over the trust/IRA. This presents a potential conflict of interest or appearance thereof.

Submitted by Bruce Steiner on Fri, 2019-06-21 02:43

  • The spouse can be the trustee except can’t make discretionary distributions to himself/herself except for an ascertainable standard.
  • Why would the IRA owner want to mandate distributions?
  • Having the spouse as a beneficiary destroys the rollover and the spouse’s opportunity to convert to a Roth, and limits the stretch to the spouse’s life expectancy.
  • Bruce Steiner

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