SECURE Act Regulations Expected “Soon”

Wednesday, June 02, 2021

By Sarah Brenner, JD
Director of Retirement Education
Follow Us on Twitter: @theslottreport

It has been well over a year since the SECURE Act became a reality, transforming the rules for inherited IRAs and doing away with the stretch IRA for most beneficiaries. While the SECURE Act statute gave us framework for the new rules, there are large gaps that need to be filled in and many unanswered questions remain.

IRA owners and practitioners who work with retirement plans have been struggling with these questions. There are issues with exactly how the new 10-year rule will work, and those issues were made more confusing by contradictory language in the recently released, and then corrected, IRA Publication 590-B. There are also questions about whether separate accounting still matters and how grandfathered and multi-beneficiary IRA trusts will be treated. These are just a few of many areas that need to be clarified.

This is where regulations come in. The regulation process is a long one. First, proposed regulations must be written, then there is a comment period and ultimately final regulations are issued. This can take a while. For the last set of regulations explaining the RMD rules, this process took over a decade.

For those of us wondering what is happening with this process there is a bit of good news. At the recent virtual Federal Bar Association Insurance Tax Seminar, Stephen Tackney of the IRS Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Employee Benefits, Exempt Organizations, and Employment Taxes) confirmed that proposed regulations are on the way and promised they will provide answers to many of the questions the SECURE Act has raised. However, exactly when the regulations will arrive is still unknown. “I always say it’s in the ‘soon’ category; that means later than imminent but before eventually,” Tackney said.

Stay tuned to the Slott Report for the latest updates. We will be monitoring any IRS guidance on the SECURE Act carefully and closely watching the regulation process unfold. Hopefully, there will be more details on exactly how the new rules for inherited IRA work and more answers to our many SECURE Act questions in the near future, possibly even before the end of 2021.

Post Views: 1
Posted in: ,

Content Citation Guidelines

Below is the required verbiage that must be added to any re-branded piece from Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC. The verbiage must be used any time you take text from a piece and put it onto your own letterhead, within your newsletter, on your website, etc. Verbiage varies based on where you’re taking the content from.

Please be advised that prior to distributing re-branded content, you must send a proof to [email protected] for approval.

For white papers/other outflow pieces:

Copyright © [year of publication], [Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC – depending on what it says on the original piece] Reprinted with permission [Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC – depending on what it says on the original piece] takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this information.

For charts:

Copyright © [year of publication], Ed Slott and Company, LLC Reprinted with permission Ed Slott and Company, LLC takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this information.

For Slott Report articles:

Copyright © [year of article], Ed Slott and Company, LLC Reprinted from The Slott Report, [insert date of article], with permission. [Insert article URL] Ed Slott and Company, LLC takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this article.

Please contact Matt Smith at [email protected] or (516) 536-8282 with any questions.