A surviving spouse was treated as having received proceeds from an individual retirement account (IRA) that were owned by her deceased husband and, therefore, was a payee or distributee of the IRA. However, to the extent that the amounts standing in the IRA were directly transferred to one or more IRAs maintained in the name of the surviving spouse, the transferred amounts were includible in the surviving spouse's gross income since the proceeds were not rolled over within the applicable time period.



Letter Ruling 200126038, April 4, 2001


[Code Secs. 401 , 408 , 4973 and 4974 ]

LETTER TOO LONG- THIS SITE IS RESTRICTED TO 10,000 WORDS FOR POSTING

The problem was not that the IRA proceeds were not rolled over within the applicable time period. In fact they were. The problem was that the spouse died before completing the rollover, and the Service ruled that the executrix could not complete the rollover.