A widow recently inherited her husband’s Inherited IRA. His inherited IRA was established pre-2020 and he was stretching it out over his lifetime. Is it accurate that she will now have a 10-year clock but will have to take yearly distributions out based on his life expectancy?
Her husband originally inherited his mother’s IRA and was taking distributions each year. The widow is a successor of a successor.
Husband was a designated beneficiary if he inherited directly from his mother and mother was the original owner. The widow is the only successor beneficiary. It will have to be determined if his mother passed prior to or after her RBD since that determines if the widow must continue annual RMDs or they can stop until year 10.
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2024-02-07 21:48
She will be a successor beneficiary, but will also have to determine if the original IRA owner passed before or after their RBD. If before, the successor beneficiary will not have any annual RMDs in years 1-9 of the 10 year rule, but if the original owner passed post RBD, the successor beneficiary will have to continue the RMD schedule of her husband. Her own age is immaterial. The widow is also responsible for completing the year of death RMD of her husband if he did not complete it before passing.