RMDs in Years 1-9 for Inherited Roth IRA

If I am not one of the 5 eligible designated beneficiaries, am I required to take an RMD in years 1-9 from a Roth IRA I inherit based on my life expectancy?

OR, do I just have to withdraw all of the inherited Roth IRA assets by 12-31 of the 10th year following the year of death of the Roth IRA account owner, regardless of what type of beneficiary I am?

Basically, my question is: Are inherited Roth IRAs and inherited Traditional IRAs treated the same r.e. RMDs in years 1 through 9 after the death of the Roth IRA owner?

The 5 types of eligible designated beneficiaries being:

1. Spouse
2. Minor child of the deceased
3. Disabled
4. Chronically Ill
5. Beneficiary not more than 10 years younger than deceased

My father passed away in 2022. He was 80 when he died.
I turned 55 years old in 2022.
I inherited my father’s Roth IRA in 2022 when he died.

My LE in 2023 = 30.6 [56 year old]

If I have to take an RMD in years 1-9 from an inherited Roth IRA, does it work like this:

My 2023 Year 1 RMD Factor = 30.6
My 2024 Year 2 RMD Factor = 29.6
My 2025 Year 3 RMD Factor = 28.6
My 2026 Year 4 RMD Factor = 27.6
My 2027 Year 5 RMD Factor = 26.6
My 2028 Year 6 RMD Factor = 25.6
My 2029 Year 7 RMD Factor = 24.6
My 2030 Year 8 RMD Factor = 23.6
My 2031 Year 9 RMD Factor = 22.6

All remaining Roth IRA assets must be withdrawn by 12-31-2032 [12-31 of year 10].

Thank you in advance for your help.



  • The major aspects to this are first that all Roth owners are treated as passing prior to RBD, and therefore there are no annual RMDs required in years 1-9 of the 10 year rule. Second, while the separate account rules do not affect you, if the other beneficiaries who are EDBs do not establish separate inherited Roth accounts by 12/31/2023, they will no longer be treated as EDBs, but would fall under the 10 year rule without annual RMDs as is your situation, regardless of whether they create separate inherited Roth IRAs by the deadline.
  • As such, annual divisors for you are irrelevant.
  • Assuming father first contributed to a Roth IRA prior to 2019, the 5 year holding period has now been met and the inherited Roth is qualified and fully tax free. That means you do not have to worry about determining your share of the Roth basis and do not have to report any distributions on Form 8606. You would only enter your distributions on line 4a of Form 1040. 
  • Of course, the longer you wait to take distributions, the longer the Roth has to generate tax free gains, so you could simply wait until 2032 to take any distributions if you wanted to.

Thank you, as always.

Add new comment

Log in or register to post comments