Getting Your Financial Ducks In A Row Rotating Header Image

required minimum distribution

Using First Year RMD Delay to Your Advantage

When you are first subject to RMD (Required Minimum Distributions), which for most folks* is the year that you reach age 70½, you are allowed until April 1 of the following year to receive that first minimum distribution.  For all other years you must take your RMD by December 31 of that year.  For many folks, it makes the most sense to take that first year RMD during the first tax year (by December 31 of the year that you’re age 70½), because otherwise you’ll have two RMDs hitting your tax return in that year.  However, in some cases, it might work to your advantage to delay that first distribution until at least the beginning of the following year – as long as you make it by April 1, you’re golden. There may be many circumstances that could make this delay work to your advantage – maybe you’re still working […]

How to Deal With Missed Required Minimum Distributions

What happens when a beneficiary doesn’t act in a timely fashion with regard to taking Required Minimum Distributions from the inherited IRA?  In other words, what are your options if you’ve missed Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) in prior years? The Inheritance So, let’s say you inherited an IRA from your mother – this was her own IRA that she had contributed to or rolled over funds from a qualified plan at some point, and had designated you as the sole primary beneficiary.  Things get really hectic and confusing after the death of a parent, and sometimes we don’t cover all of the bases properly… and in this example, you didn’t realize that you needed to begin taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) from your inherited IRA as of December 31 of the year following the year of your mother’s death.  As of now, for example’s sake, let’s say we’re in the […]

Annuity in an IRA? Maybe, now

Forever and a day, the rule of thumb has been that you should not use IRA funds to purchase an annuity – primarily because traditional annuities had the primary feature of tax deferral. Since an IRA is already tax-deferred, it’s duplication of effort plus a not insignificant additional cost to include an annuity in an IRA.  This hasn’t stopped enthusiastic sales approaches by annuity companies – plus new features may make it a more realistic approach. Changes in the annuity landscape have made some inroads against this rule of thumb – including guaranteed living benefit riders, death benefits, and other options.  Recently the IRS made a change to its rules regarding IRAs and annuities that will likely make the use of annuities even more popular in IRAs: The use of the lesser of 25% or $125,000 of the IRA balance (also applies to 401(k) and other qualified retirement plans) for […]

When is a RMD a RMD?

I receive quite a few questions from folks looking for clarification on the rules around Required Minimum Distributions upon reaching age 70½, so I thought I’d jot down a couple of facts about them that you may find interesting. When can I take the distribution? Looking through some notes from readers I found one where it was asked (this is paraphrased for clarity): My birthdate is April 10, 1943, so I will reach age 70½ on October 10, 2013.  Do I need to wait until October 10 or after to take a distribution so that it is counted as my RMD? I responded to this question by saying that, to be safe, I suggest the reader wait until after October 10 to take the distribution. However. (there’s always a however in life, isn’t there?) I subsequently received a message from a reader (thanks, TAM!) with the following updated information: It […]

Special Treatment for an Older Spouse/Beneficiary of an IRA

Note: the situation described in this post was originally brought to my attention by Mr. Barry Picker, of Picker, Weinberg, & Auerback, CPAs, P.C.  Mr. Picker is another of those “rock stars” in the world of retirement plan knowledge, up there with the best of them.  Many thanks to Mr. Picker for sharing his wealth of knowledge. There is a special set of circumstances regarding inherited IRAs that only fits a few cases – but for those cases the rules can work out favorably and it is important to understand how this operates.  The circumstances are that a younger spouse has died and left an IRA to the older, surviving spouse.  In this case, if the decedent-spouse had already begun receiving Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from the IRA, the survivor-spouse, if sole beneficiary of the IRA, can make the distribution rules work in his or her favor. In any case, […]

Take Your RMDs From Your Smallest IRA

Here’s a strategy that you could use to simplify your life: when you’re subject to Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) after age 70½, you have the option of taking separate RMDs from each IRA that you own OR you could take all of your RMDs from one account if you like. As long as you calculate your RMD based upon all of the IRAs that you own, you are free to take the full amount of all of your RMDs from one single account (or several accounts) if you wish.  And keep in mind that the “I” in IRA stands for Individual – so you can’t aggregate your IRAs with your husband’s, for example. By doing so, you could eliminate the smaller account(s) if you wish, thereby reducing paperwork (fewer accounts and statements).  As well, you don’t have to keep track of as many accounts for estate planning. But then again, […]

Guidance on Qualified Charitable Contributions From Your IRA For 2012

January 1, 2013 update: Passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 has extended the QCD through the end of 2013.  See this article for more details. In past tax years (through the end of 2011) there was a provision available that allowed taxpayers who were at least age 70½ years of age to make distributions from their IRAs directly to a qualified charity, bypassing the need to include the distribution as income.  The law allowed the taxpayer to use a distribution of this nature to satisfy Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) where applicable. This law expired at the end of 2011, but in years past Congress has acted very late in the year and retroactively reinstated this provision.  For more detail on how this provision (if not reinstated) can impact your taxes, see the article Charitable Contributions From Your IRA – 2012 and Beyond. Guidance For 2012 If you […]

IRS Cracking Down on IRA Rules

It seems that some of the rules the IRS has put in place with regard to IRAs have not always been watched very closely – and the IRS is stepping up efforts to resolve some of this.  According to the article in the WSJ, IRA Rules Get Trickier, an estimated $286 million in penalties and fees were uncollected for 2006 and 2007 tax years’ missed distributions, over-contributions, and the like. The title of the article is a bit misleading, because the rules are not changing or getting “trickier”, the IRS is just going to be paying closer attention to what you’re doing with your account.  This is set to begin by the end of this year, after the IRS delivers their report to the Treasury on how to go about enforcing the rules more closely. The first rule being monitored more closely is the contribution rule – for 2012, you’re […]

RMDs Don’t Have to Be Taken in Cash

But… It’s a little-known fact that distributions from an IRA  or a Qualified Retirement Plan can be taken in kind, rather than in cash.  You can in any circumstance take distribution from the account of stocks, bonds, or any investment that you own, just the same as if it were cash. The downside to this is determining valuation for the distribution.  You could value the distribution on the day of the distribution by opening price, closing price, average price, or mean between the day’s high and low prices.  Where you really get into trouble is when the security that you own is very thinly-traded, such as a small company or very infrequently-traded bonds.  These can be very hard to value on the date of distribution, and as you might recall, the value of a distribution for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) must be valued appropriately in order to ensure that the […]

Which Account to Take your RMDs From

Image via Wikipedia When you’re subject to the Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) and you have more than one IRA account to take the distributions from, you have a choice to make.  Even though you have to calculate the RMD amount from all of your IRA accounts combined, the IRS provides that you could take the total of all your RMDs from a single account if you wish. With this provision in mind, you could take all of your RMDs from the smallest account, which would provide you the opportunity to eliminate one of the accounts in your list, thereby simplifying things.  By reducing the number of accounts that you have, you could simplify the calculation of RMDs, estate planning, and just general paperwork. However, it might not always work to your best interests to reduce the number of accounts that you have.  You may have multiple accounts in order to […]

New Opportunities to “Roth”

Recently one of the tenets of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 came into effect, providing you with additional opportunities to set aside funds in a Roth account – not a Roth IRA, but rather a “designated Roth account”, often referred to as a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b).  Designated Roth accounts are also often referred to as DRACs – just to keep the acronym train rolling. The way the new law works is that, if you have a 401(k) or 403(b) (the traditional kind), you can roll over or convert some of your funds to a DRAC while the account is still active – as long as your plan is set up to allow in-plan distributions of this variety. The eligible rollover distribution (ERD) must be made: after September 27, 2010; from a non-designated Roth account in the same plan, meaning your traditional 401(k) or 403(b); because of […]