ROTH 60-day Rollover Same Property?

Taxpayer needed liquidity in a hurry so he withdrew a 3 million dollar publicly traded stock from an individual ROTH IRA (then borrowed against it and converted it to cash) with the intent to restore the account prior to the 60-day rule. During the 60-days, the company was bought out so that company/stock no longer exists. Is there any exception to the “Same Property rule” that says, if you withdraw 100 shares of XYZ Stock, you MUST put back the 100 shares. If XYZ no longer exists, that becomes impossible and the taxpayer isn’t able to complete the “same property” rollover. Exxon purchased the other company, but Exxon stock isn’t the same stock. Is it possible to put in cash instead equal to the FMV at the time of the withdrawal (or some other dollar amount)? Taxpayer is over 59 1/2 of age, but within the 5 year rollover. The ROTH has suffered a loss in value after the rollover so there are no earnings to be concerned about.



I am not aware of any on point guidance or specific PLR that addresses this issue. The amount is large enough to warrant filing taxpayer’s own PLR request. Meanwhile, will the custodian accept cash, which of course would end up being an excess contribution if the PLR is unsuccessful?  Sales of companies are announced far in advance of the actual closing date. Was the taxpayer not aware of this risk, or were they unaware of the same property rollover requirement?



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