Recalculate RMD with 2022 table?
Successor beneficiary here of a traditional IRA. The first beneficiary (mom) was a spouse, mom inherited after original owner (dad) was taking RMD’s, but mom was only 69 when she died in 2011. I’m an adult child beneficiary and inherited the IRA back in 2011. I’ve been taking RMD’s based on old Single Life Expectancy Table for Inherited IRAs using moms age in year of death and then reducing expectancy factor by 1 for each subsequent year. Using the old table, I started back in 2011 and am now at 3.8 in 2025. Do I use 3.8 for 2025? or do I recalculate using the new 2022 table based on moms age in 2011 and use 5.6 this year?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2025-09-17 13:07
You should have modified your RMD divisor starting in 2022. That is done by using the new 2022 table single LE factor for Mom’s age in 2011, then reducing by 1.0 for each year since. If Mom would still have been 69 at the end of 2011, your 2025 beneficiary divisor of 5.6 is correct.
There is another possible scenario. If in any year after Mom inherited she did not complete her full beneficiary RMD, then she would have defaulted to owning the IRA in that year even if it was not retitled as such. If Mom was the owner, you would be a designated beneficiary and not a successor and would use your own age for beneficiary RMDs, not mom’s. It would take some research on your part to determine if Mom completed all her beneficiary RMDs. You would need to check her very old tax returns for inherited IRA income and would have to know the prior year end inherited IRA balance to see if the full beneficiary RMD was completed. May not be possible or worth your trouble at this point since this inherited IRA has already been depleted due to years of RMDs.
Permalink Submitted by Tom on Wed, 2025-09-17 14:27
Thank You for confirming that I should recalculate using the new table, use 5.6, and the possible scenario.
p.s. in 2022, 2023, and 2024 I suspected that I was taking a larger RMD by using the old table. But I wanted to err on the side of caution. I’d rather be over than under on the RMD than get hit with a penalty. Combined with the possibility that the TCJA rates might have expired at the end of 2025 and reverted to higher rates, I calculated that it would be better to take advantage of the known lower tax rates in those years and accelerate withdrawals. But now with the passage of the OBBBA and permanent tax rates after 2025, that math is no longer correct. It now makes more sense to use the lowest allowed RMD plus get 2 more years to spread out the distribution.