Inherited IRA Owner Dies – Beneficiary options
I have a daughter who set up a beneficiary IRA, when her mom passed away in 2021. The daughter has now passed away in 2024. What are the next beneficiaries options for taking the money?
I have a daughter who set up a beneficiary IRA, when her mom passed away in 2021. The daughter has now passed away in 2024. What are the next beneficiaries options for taking the money?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Thu, 2024-11-07 16:43
Sorry to hear of your loss.
Daughter’s beneficiaries are successor beneficiaries who are subject to the same 10 year rule as your daughter was, and this will require that their inherited IRA be drained by 2031.
If Mom passed after her RMDs had begun (technically on or after her required beginning date), your daughter would have been expected to take annual beneficiary RMDs based on her life expectancy. But because of the IRS delay in issuing the Secure Act Reg, they have waived these annual RMDs from 2021-2024. Therefore, if daughter did not take an RMD in 2024, this is not a problem. The new beneficiaries will have to start annual RMDs in 2025 using what would have been daughter’s remaining life expectancy based on her attained age in 2022. What would have been her 2022 divisor is reduced by 3.0 (1.0 each year) for 2025, 4.0 for 2026 etc.
Instead, if Mom passed prior to the above date (before RMDs), there are no annual RMDs for the new beneficiaries. They only need to drain the inherited IRAs by 2031. That said, if the balance is significant, they should probably withdraw a partial amount voluntarily to avoid a large taxable distribution in 2031 at a high marginal tax rate.