A taxpayer learned a costly lesson recently when he forgot to complete an IRA rollover within the 60-day time fame. He asked the IRS for more time to do the rollover, but they turned him down. As a result, his IRA distribution couldn’t be rolled over tax-free so that meant his IRA distribution was taxable.
In Private Letter Ruling (PLR) 201425023, released by IRS on June 20, 2014, the IRS ruled that a surviving spouse who received IRA proceeds through a trust, which was the beneficiary of her deceased husband’s IRA, could not roll over the IRA funds she received because more than 60 days had passed since she received the funds. The IRS denied her request for more time to do the rollover because she didn’t provide sufficient proof of financial institution error. More importantly, the PLR is a good example of what not to do when a trust is the beneficiary of an IRA.
Retirement planning is complicated. It's a personal and situational endeavor with plenty of possible pitfalls in the way of success. This week's Slott Report Mailbag illustrates several various situations in which the individual sought help from either publications or professionals and is still left confused. Click to read this week's Q&A with our IRA Technical Consultant.
A taxpayer we will call "Rebecca" represented that she received a distribution from her IRA on December 4, 2009. It was always her intent to rollover that distribution back into the IRA by the 60-day rollover deadline. She was informed in writing by her financial institution that the redeposit deadline was February 4, 2010 (a date which was actually after the deadline). She followed that procedure and gave her financial advisor a check for the entire rollover amount for redeposit on the specified deadline date (February 4, 2010). Unfortunately, Rebecca's rollover actually happened on day 62.
IRS has announced that they are going to go along with the Tax Court decision in the Bobrow case, but they won’t do so until at least January 1, 2015. What's this mean? We detail this ruling below.
Have you ever been to the post office on April 15th? If not, I wouldn't recommend it. It's a zoo. Chances are that if you ever make such a trip, the lines will be long and the wait even longer. Why? Because all the last-minute procrastinators are there to send out their tax returns. Click to find out how to avoid this rush.
We are constantly saying that you should not do a 60-day rollover unless it is absolutely necessary. Here is a perfect example of why that's the case. The following story comes from a recent private letter ruling issued by IRS. It details some of the many ways a 60-day rollover can go horribly wrong.
Recently, a woman found out the hard way what can happen when she was confused over the difference between an annuity and an IRA annuity. As a result, an IRA distribution that she took was taxable to her even though she intended to roll over the funds tax-free to another IRA within 60 days. She asked the IRS for a waiver of the 60-day rollover rule due to her confusion but the IRS said no, so the problem couldn’t be fixed.
IRS has released its annual list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams just in time for you to try and avoid them during their peak tax season. Beware of these scams and check back here for Tax Planning Week through Friday.
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