Disability and Your IRA

Photo credit: jb

Among the many things that are important to deal with regarding your retirement accounts, you must consider the impact of your own disability and how your IRAs will be dealt with. A very good way to do this is to have a durable power of attorney (DPOA) document signed that gives someone you trust the authority to make investment decisions, take distributions, and create new IRAs from your current accounts.

Maybe you consider this to be overkill – a belt to go along with your suspenders, so to speak – but then again, it might prove to be a very important document. In the event of your incapacity, without such a DPOA, you would not be able to continue carrying out actions that you intended, such as a Roth conversion strategy.

Take for example a situation where a terminally-ill father has decided that his gift to his children upon his passing will be the total of his IRA, converted fully to Roth and with the taxes paid from his other sources, so that the Roth account will be available tax-free to the children. The remaining balance of those other sources (a taxable investment account) is to be distributed to his alma mater per his will. He has discussed this with his children and his attorney, however, prior to enacting this maneuver he is involved in a severe auto accident and slips into a coma, which lasts until his passing.

Now his children will still have the benefit of the IRA, but they will be paying tax on each distribution from the account. And since his will stipulates that the taxable investment account’s balance is to be distributed to his alma mater, those funds are not available to pay the tax on the IRA distributions. This isn’t what the father had hoped would occur at all.

Having a DPOA in place would have allowed the power-holder to complete the process of converting the funds to Roth, and paying the tax from the investment account, even though the gentleman in question was incapacitated. After his death, the DPOA would not apply, so the conversion would need to be completed quickly.

One other factor that you shouldn’t overlook when putting such a document into place is that you should work with the IRA provider or plan administrator to ensure that the DPOA will be honored by them, should the need ever arise. Sometimes the IRA provider will have a specific form that they request you to use in order to name a DPOA for accounts under their custodianship. It’s critical to know in advance that your plans will be allowed to play out the way you’ve orchestrated them.