Annuitizing IRA before vs. after RBD

Submitted by Robert Vashko on Wed, 2020-01-08 21:38

I was trying to think of workarounds for stretch IRAs in light of SECURE besides Roth conversions and CRUTs.

One of the IRA exceptions to the pre-59.5 penalty is annuitization. As per page 22 of 590B, “You can receive distributions from your traditional IRA that are part of a series of substantially equal payments over your life (or your life expectancy), or over the lives (or the joint life expectancies) of you and your beneficiary, without having to pay the 10% additional tax, even if you receive such distributions before you are age 591/2.“

Note that it says annuitization over the joint lives/life expectancies the IRA owner and their beneficiary. It also doesn’t say you must be under 59.5 to do this joint annuitization.

While I am generally not a fan of annuitization and forsaking access to the cash value of your IRA, I am wondering this:

Post-SECURE, could an IRA owner – say, age 65 – annuitize their IRA today with their 40-year old son as a joint annuitant, start drawing income today based on the joint life expectancies? If so, if Owner names Son as sole bene, and Owner dies, could Son continue the annuitization payments as a quasi-stretch over his remaining life expectancy?

If the answer to both questions is “yes,” would the answer change if Owner was age 80 and well past his RBD before he annuitized? My thought is that once he passes RBD, the joint-life annuitization option is probably off the table.

Would appreciate constructive thoughts, comments and opinions. Thank you!



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Thu, 2020-01-09 04:55

  • To waive the pre 59.5 early withdrawal penalty, IRA 72t plan distributions must be calculated using one of the 3 approved methods in RR 2002-62. These plans terminate at the longer of age 59.5 or 5 years. Therefore, they are not really applicable to your question.
  • However, at 59.5 an IRA owner could purchase an SPIA joint and survivor IRA annuity from an insurance company. These contracts must meet the highly technical requirements of IRS Reg. 1.401(a)(9)-6 designed to eliminate annuity structures that extend the IRA longer than the RMD rules were designed for. Spouses are protected, but not non spouses.  If the joint annuitant was a generation or more younger (must also be the IRA beneficiary) than the IRA owner, the amount they could receive after the owner’s death is reduced in rough proportion to the extent of the age difference. So the survivor would get the stretch, but would not receive the dollars. The stretch may or may not offset the reduction in the amount received.
  •  The Reg requires than annuitization take place prior to the RBD, but I hear of some IRA owners annuitizing after the RBD. I do not understand where this is allowed, except perhaps a Roth IRA that does not have an RBD. 

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