T-IRA owner died in 2018
Surviving spouse, primary beneficiary.
Surviving spouse, established a inherited IRA
Surviving spouse now – in 2024 – would like to roll the assets into her own IRA – Is this possible? I believe there is no deadline to do a spousal IRA rollover. Looking for confirmation
Thank you in advance.
Question:
Spouse 100% beneficiary and only beneficiary.
Intends to roll money from deceased spouse’s ESOP to an inherited IRA since she is 58.
Accidentally opens IRA in her name. ESOP sends her check made out to her IRA.
If she ends up depositing that check, can she roll it into a new inherited IRA (titled correctly) to fix the mistake, or is she out of luck if it gets deposited?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2024-05-08 15:18
If the spouse is a primary but not the sole beneficiary, they would have to take a beneficiary distribution and roll over the amount in excess of the beneficiary RMD.
If spouse is the sole beneficiary, they can elect to assume ownership anytime this year, and if the spouse is RMD age, treat the IRA as owned the entire year and use the Uniform table. This would be non reportable and would not be treated as a rollover.
If spouse is the sole beneficiary but failed to take a beneficiary RMD in any prior year, they defaulted to ownership in that year, and should have the IRA retitled as owner.
IRS proposed Secure Act regs include a time limit for assumption of ownership, which would in this case be the end of the year the spouse reached their RMD age. However, this is not included in Pub 590B yet, and since the regs are not yet final, the custodian would probably accept an assumption of ownership at this time.