Pre-2020 Rules Mother Inherited 30 yr old Daughter’s IRA back in 2014

I have a new client who is turning 73 this year (year of birth is 1951) who informed me this week that she inherited her daughters IRA when her daughter died back in 2014. The daughter was only 30 years of age at her year of death. I am having a hard time digging up the Pre-2020 rules, but in this case, would the mother, despite herself not being of RMD age back in 2014, be relegated to take annual RMDs from her daughter’s IRA for the last 10 years? If so, and she missed the last 10 year, will she satisfy the old rules by taking the lump sum out in the 10th year? And if not, what rules is the mother held to?



  1. Most IRA agreements use life expectancy as the default rule unless the beneficiary elected the 5 year rule instead. The Secure Act does not apply here since client inherited prior to 2020. Missing all these years (2015-2019 and 2021-2023) will require that client calculates the beneficiary RMD for each year (2020 was waived)  and take a distribution of the total of those years, which will be taxable in 2024. A 1040 X with form 5329 must be filed for each of those years with a request to waive the penalty, and the IRS should waive the penalties. Of course, she can take full distribution if she wishes, but will still have to file the 5329 forms.
  2. Sec 313 of Secure 2.0 applies a 3 year SOL to missed RMDs, and it is not clear whether it is retroactive or only applies to tax years starting in 2022. If it is retroactive, the 2015-2019 RMDs would not have to be made up or Form 5329 would not need to be filed for those years. It’s not clear when the IRS will release guidance on this and other Secure 2.0 provisions.

Add new comment

Log in or register to post comments