As a follow-up to the recent post on this blog The One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule: Revised, the IRS has recently released some additional guidance on the subject, via Announcement 2014-15.
As previously mentioned, the IRS has determined to begin using the one-rollover-per-year rule applied to ALL IRAs that the taxpayer owns, rather than only the affected IRAs that have been involved in a rollover.
According to the Announcement, the IRS fully acknowledges that the previous understanding of the rule was that it applied on an IRA-by-IRA basis. In fact, there was a Proposed Regulation § 1.408-4(b)(4)(ii) on the books that was to further define the rule as applied only to the involved IRAs. Ever since the Tax Court decided otherwise in the case Bobrow v. Commissioner (TC Memo 2014-21), the rule has been changed.
According to the recent announcement though, this will not take affect across the board until January 1, 2015. Prior to that date, presumably, the old interpretation will be used, except, apparently, for Mr. Bobrow’s case (and any further cases that might be tried by the Tax Court).