What If You Inherit an IRA?
Excerpted From IRS Publication 590

An IRA is inherited when someone who named you as a beneficiary has passed away.  If the inherited IRA is from a spouse, it may be treated as your own retirement plan, subject to the standard regulations regarding withdrawals and contributions.  However, if you are the named beneficiary to an IRA other than that of a spouse, there are limitations on contributions and rollovers as described below.

If you inherit a traditional IRA, you are called a beneficiary. A beneficiary can be any person or entity the owner chooses to receive the benefits of the IRA after he or she dies. Beneficiaries of a traditional IRA must include in their gross income any taxable distributions they receive.

Inherited from spouse
If you inherit a traditional IRA from your spouse, you generally have the following three choices. You can:

1.      Treat it as your own IRA by designating yourself as the account owner.

2.      Treat it as your own by rolling it over into your traditional IRA, or to the extent it is taxable, into a:

a.      Qualified employer plan,

b.      Qualified employee annuity plan (section 403(a) plan),

c.      Tax-sheltered annuity plan (section 403(b) plan),

d.      Deferred compensation plan of a state or local government (section 457 plan), or

3.      Treat yourself as the beneficiary rather than treating the IRA as your own.

Treating it as your own
You will be considered to have chosen to treat the IRA as your own if:

·         Contributions (including rollover contributions) are made to the inherited IRA, or

·         You do not take the required minimum distribution for a year as a beneficiary of the IRA.

You will only be considered to have chosen to treat the IRA as your own if:

·         You are the sole beneficiary of the IRA, and

·         You have an unlimited right to withdraw amounts from it.

However, if you receive a distribution from your deceased spouse's IRA, you can roll that distribution over into your own IRA within the 60-day time limit, as long as the distribution is not a required distribution, even if you are not the sole beneficiary of your deceased spouse's IRA. 

Inherited from someone other than spouse
If you inherit a traditional IRA from anyone other than your deceased spouse, you cannot treat the inherited IRA as your own. This means that you cannot make any contributions to the IRA. It also means you cannot roll over any amounts into or out of the inherited IRA. However, you can make a trustee-to-trustee transfer as long as the IRA into which amounts are being moved is set up and maintained in the name of the deceased IRA owner for the benefit of you as beneficiary.

Like the original owner, you generally will not owe tax on the assets in the IRA until you receive distributions from it. You must begin receiving distributions from the IRA under the rules for distributions that apply to beneficiaries.

IRA with basis
If you inherit a traditional IRA from a person who had a basis in the IRA because of nondeductible contributions, that basis remains with the IRA. Unless you are the decedent's spouse and choose to treat the IRA as your own, you cannot combine this basis with any basis you have in your own traditional IRA(s) or any basis in traditional IRA(s) you inherited from other decedents. If you take distributions from both an inherited IRA and your IRA, and each has basis, you must complete separate Forms 8606 to determine the taxable and nontaxable portions of those distributions.

Federal estate tax deduction
A beneficiary may be able to claim a deduction for estate tax resulting from certain distributions from a traditional IRA. The beneficiary can deduct the estate tax paid on any part of a distribution that is income in respect of a decedent. He or she can take the deduction for the tax year the income is reported.

Any taxable part of a distribution that is not income in respect of a decedent is a payment the beneficiary must include in income. However, the beneficiary cannot take any estate tax deduction for this part.

A surviving spouse can roll over the distribution to another traditional IRA and avoid including it in income for the year received.

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