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| © kate_sept2004/Getty Images | An adviser discusses inheritance with an older married couple. |
By James Royal, Bankrate
If you've inherited an individual retirement account,
or IRA, you can find yourself at the tricky three-way intersection of
estate planning, financial planning and tax planning. One wrong decision
can lead to expensive consequences, and good luck trying to persuade
the IRS to give you a do-over.
When you inherit an IRA, you have many - too many! - choices to make depending on the situation:
- If you inherited an IRA, and you’re the spouse of the original owner, a minor child, chronically ill or disabled, or not less than 10 years younger than the original owner, you have one set of choices. But anyone else has a different set of options.
- Whether the original account owner had to take required minimum distributions can also influence what you can and should do with the IRA.
- Should you try to minimize taxes or maximize cash distribution from the account?
These are a few of the complex questions that an inherited IRA presents to the recipient, and the recently passed SECURE Act shook up longstanding practices.
Some experts advise IRA beneficiaries to do nothing until they've met with a financial adviser who can explain their options.
"The
worst thing to do would be to cash out the plan, put it in your
account, and then go see an adviser and say, 'Now what?’" says Natalie
Choate, lawyer and author of the retirement plan guide Life and Death
Planning for Retirement Benefits.
At that point, you're in trouble. Before that happens, learn these six must-know tips for handling an inherited IRA.
Inherited IRA rules: 6 key things to know
1. Spouses get the most leeway
If someone inherits an IRA from their deceased spouse, the survivor has several choices for what to do with it:
- Treat the IRA as if it were your own, naming yourself as the owner.
- Treat the IRA as if it were your own by rolling it over into another account, such as another IRA or a qualified employer plan, including 403(b) plans.
- Treat yourself as the beneficiary of the plan.
Each course of action may create additional choices that you must make.
For
example, if you are the sole beneficiary and treat the IRA as your own,
you may have to take required minimum distributions, depending on your
age. But in the right circumstances, you may have the option of not
withdrawing money.
"If you were not interested in
taking money out at this time, you could let that money continue to grow
in the IRA until you reach age 72," says Frank St. Onge, an enrolled
agent at Total Financial Planning, LLC in the Detroit area.
In
addition, spouses "are able to roll the IRA into an account for
themselves. That resets everything. Now they are able to name their own
beneficiary that will succeed them and be able to deal with the IRA as
if it is their own," says Carol Tully, a CPA at Wolf & Co. in
Boston.
The IRS provides further rules around your options, including what you can do with a Roth IRA, where the rules differ substantially from traditional IRAs.
2. Choose when to take your money
If
you've inherited an IRA, you'll need to take action in order to avoid
running afoul of IRS rules. Your available options as an inheritor
depend on whether you're the spouse of the original IRA owner,
chronically ill or disabled, a minor child, or not less than 10 years
younger than the original owner. If you're not someone in one of these
categories, you have a different set of rules.
If you're in the former group, you have two options:
- You can choose to take distributions over your life expectancy, known as the "stretch option," which leaves the funds in the IRA for as long as possible.
- Otherwise, you must liquidate the account within five years of the original owner's death.
The
stretch IRA is the tax equivalent of the treasure at the end of the
rainbow. Hidden beneath the layers of rules and red tape is the ability
to shelter funds from taxation while they potentially grow for decades.
In
the second option, the beneficiary is forced to take the money out of
the IRA over time as part of the five-year rule. For substantial
accounts, that can add up to a monstrous income tax bill - unless the IRA is a Roth, in which case, taxes were paid before money went into the account.
Before
2020, these options for inherited IRAs applied to everyone. However,
with the passage of the SECURE Act in late 2019, those who are not in
the first category (spouses and others) have to withdraw the IRA's full
balance in 10 years. They are not subject to annual required minimum
distributions, but the account must be closed out at the end of the
10-year period.
The IRS website has more information on the topic of required minimum distributions.
3. Be aware of year-of-death required distributions
Another
hurdle for beneficiaries of traditional IRAs is figuring out if the
benefactor had taken his or her RMD in the year of death. If the
original account owner hasn't done this, it's the responsibility of the
beneficiary to make sure the minimum has been met.
"Let's
say your father dies Jan. 24, leaving you his IRA. He probably hadn't
gotten around to taking out his distribution yet. The beneficiary has to
take it out if the original owner didn't. If you don't know about that
or forget to do it, you're liable for a penalty of 50 percent" of the
amount not distributed, Choate says.
Not surprisingly, that can cause a problem if someone dies late in the year.
"If
your father dies on Christmas Day and still hasn't taken out the
distribution, you may not even find out that you own the account until
it's already too late to take out that year's distribution," she says.
The last day of the calendar year is the deadline for taking that year's RMD.
If the deceased was not yet age 70 1/2 , then there is no year-of-death required distribution.
4. Take the tax break coming to you
For
estates subject to the estate tax, inheritors of an IRA will get an
income-tax deduction for the estate taxes paid on the account. The
taxable income earned (but not received by the deceased) is called
"income in respect of a decedent."
"When you take a
distribution from an IRA, it's taxable income," says Choate. "But
because that person's estate had to pay a federal-estate tax, you get an
income-tax deduction for the estate taxes that were paid on the IRA.
You might have $1 million of income with a $350,000 deduction to offset
against that."
"It's not necessary that you were the person who paid the taxes; just that someone did," she says.
For 2020, estates worth more than $11.58 million are subject to the estate tax, up from $11.4 million in 2019.
5. Don't ignore beneficiary forms
An ambiguous, incomplete or missing designated beneficiary form can sink an estate plan.
Many people assume they filled out the form correctly at one point.
"You
ask who their beneficiary is, and they think they know. But the form
hasn't been completed, or it's not on record with the custodian. That
creates a lot of problems," says Tully.
If there is
no designated beneficiary form and the account goes to the estate, the
beneficiary will be stuck with the five-year rule for distributions from
the account.
The simplicity of the form can be misleading. Just a few pieces of information can direct large sums of money.
"One
form like that can control millions of dollars, whereas a trust could
be 50 pages," says M.D. Anderson, founder of InheritedIRAHell.com and
president of Arizona-based Financial Strategies, which specializes in
inherited IRA issues. "People procrastinate, they don't update forms and
cause all kinds of legal entanglement."
6. Improperly drafted trusts can be bad news
It is possible to list a trust
as a primary beneficiary of an IRA. It is also possible that this will
go horribly wrong. Done incorrectly, a trust can unwittingly limit the
options of beneficiaries.
Tully says that if the
provisions of the trust are not carefully drafted, some custodians won't
be able to see through the trust to determine the qualified
beneficiaries, in which case the IRA's accelerated distribution rules
would come into play.
The trust needs to be drafted by a lawyer "who's experienced with the rules for leaving IRAs to trusts," says Choate.
Without highly specialized advice, the snarls can be difficult to untangle.
Where to turn for help
Inherited
IRAs present many complications, even more so than the already-strict
rules of an IRA plan. But you have several options, including some free
ones, that can get you going in the right direction so that you can
avoid costly mistakes.
First off, you can search for help on the IRS website. The site offers comprehensive rules on distributions from IRAs,
and it's a good first resource to answer your questions. But what the
IRS doesn't offer is advice on which course of action you should take or
what might be best for your individual situation. So your next move is
to consult with your IRA custodian, who will have more detailed info on
your plan and how you can proceed.
But some IRA custodians are more versed than others in the complex rules surrounding inherited IRAs.
"Talk
about it with the custodian ahead of time," says Tully. "Plans are
great, but only as far as the ability to have them properly
implemented."
The problem is that a mistake, or bad
advice, made on the part of the custodian can create difficulties for
the beneficiaries, and the IRS will not be sympathetic.
"The
malpractice is irreversible. You cannot argue abatement of penalty and
interest and taxation in an inherited IRA case. There is no justice
other than a private letter ruling,"
says Anderson. A private letter ruling involves handing over an IRS fee
of about $6,000 to $10,000 and then waiting six months for an answer,
he adds.
Finally, you have the option of hiring a
lawyer or financial adviser, but be sure to select one with experience
in this specific field. In the case of a financial adviser, pick a fee-only fiduciary, because they will put your interests first and you - not someone else - are paying them to do so.
This
kind of adviser will help you make a decision that meets your needs and
fits your specific situation. That's especially important when the
issues here are complex and it's easy for unscrupulous advisers to do
what's in their best interest rather than yours.
If
you're getting conflicting advice or something seems wrong, don't sign
anything that could lead to something irreversible. Get a second opinion
from someone with expertise specific to inherited IRAs. It really can
be that complicated.
Bottom line
An
inherited IRA can be a windfall, especially if you're able to take
advantage of decades of tax-advantaged compound growth. But as you're
navigating the process you'll want to make sure that you avoid the
pitfalls, which unfortunately seem all too easy to fall into. While
relatively easy questions can likely be answered online, it could be
well worth the cost to hire an adviser to help you maximize your
decision and make sure it's the best option for you.
See more at Bankrate
