Leaderboard

Am I interpreting the original post correctly? I understood it to be a given that the child is the properly designated beneficiary under the IRA, so the entire proceeds of the IRA ought to go to the child, and (I hope I do not make this sound unnecessarily negative) it appears that the charity to whom the participant's entire estate was left is looking to find a way to gain possession of some of the IRA as well. The most recent post ended by saying that the IRS might be especially understanding with a charity as the beneficiary, but the charity is not a beneficiary of the IRA. Maybe they meant that the IRS would forgive the estate of paying excise taxes for the unpaid RMDs because the charity would otherwise receive the funds that would have gone to pay the excise taxes. Does it work that way? I certainly agree that the terms of the will do not affect the identity of the IRA's beneficiary. The will is of no effect until the participant has died, by which point the beneficiary of the IRA is a settled issue.