IRA beneficiary

Should I Name a Trust as My IRA Beneficiary?

This week's Slott Report Mailbag, proudly sponsored by GoldCo Precious Metals, includes questions on how the pro-rata rule affects pre-tax and tax-free IRA money and how and when you should use trusts as IRA beneficiaries.

The Deceased Don’t Make Good IRA Beneficiaries

Almost all IRA owners named their IRA beneficiary when they first opened the account. In many cases, it was their spouse or parent. However, disaster can strike if that primary beneficiary dies before you do and you don't update the IRA beneficiary form. This horror story provides a valuable lesson.

5 Things You Can NOT Do With Your IRA

The "I" in IRA stands for individual. There are many things you can do with your IRA - and we cover them at length in this space. However, there are also many things you CAN'T do with the account. Here's a list of five.

3 Questions and Answers for IRA Owners and Beneficiaries Living Abroad

IRAs are U.S.-based retirement accounts. Today, however, more than ever we live in a globalized world. Many U.S. citizens work, sometimes for many years, overseas. The reverse is also true. And many of our country’s citizens still have many close friends and family overseas. Put all that together and today, it’s possible that you may have questions about how the IRA rules work when either you or your beneficiaries live abroad. With that in mind, below we tackle three of the most common questions.

Why You Should NOT Name Your Estate as IRA Beneficiary

You're allowed to name anyone as the beneficiary of your IRA. You’re also allowed to name a non-person as your IRA beneficiary. Examples of non-persons would include charities, a trust, or your estate. It is generally not a good move to name your estate as your IRA beneficiary.When you die, your estate includes the property that you owned at the time you died. It’s a legal entity that’s created after you die. Your executor must then pay your expenses and liabilities and distribute the balance according to your will.

Slott Report Mailbag: What Happens if I Accidentally Miss My RMD?

This week's Slott Report Mailbag demonstrates IRA intricacies, but also the difficulty in rectifying mistakes that have been piling up without an IRA owner's knowledge for years. These questions, and our answers, also stress the importance of putting together and working with a knowledgeable retirement team - an attorney, accountant and financial advisor.

The 3 Categories of IRA Beneficiaries You Must Know

There are three categories of beneficiaries that might want to stretch distributions from their inherited IRAs. A beneficiary's options will depend on which category they find themselves in. We detail these 3 categories below.

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