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surviving spouse rollover from qualified plan to inherited IRA?


randagulp

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So I know that a surviving spouse of a qualified plan can rollover an eligible rollover distribution to the spouse's IRA, and the account will be subject to the surviving spouse's RMD rules. However, doesn't this mean that if the spouse is older than the decedent, the rollover will cause RMDs to occur earlier than they need to (that is, at the spouse's, and not the decedent's RBD)?

Is there any way for the surviving spouse's IRA to be treated as an inherited IRA and remain subject to the decedent's RBD? Thanks...

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The model tax notice from Notice 2009-68 has a good description of the available rollover options for a surviving spouse.

If you are a surviving spouse. If you receive a payment from the Plan as the surviving spouse of a deceased participant, you have the same rollover options that the participant would have had, as described elsewhere in this notice. In addition, if you choose to do a rollover to an IRA, you may treat the IRA as your own or as an inherited IRA.
An IRA you treat as your own is treated like any other IRA of yours, so that payments made to you before you are age 591/2 will be subject to the 10% additional income tax on early distributions (unless an exception applies) and required minimum distributions from your IRA do not have to start until after you are age 70 1/2.
If you treat the IRA as an inherited IRA, payments from the IRA will not be subject to the 10% additional income tax on early distributions. However, if the participant had started taking required minimum distributions, you will have to receive required minimum distributions from the inherited IRA. If the participant had not started taking required minimum distributions from the Plan, you will not have to start receiving required minimum distributions from the inherited IRA until the year the participant would have been age 70 1/2.
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