Question?

Thanks for the insight much appreciated! The specific situation I am dealing with the RMD was exhausted in 2014 prior to the account owner passing in Dec. 2014. So in this situation the beneficiary distributions will be occurring in the year following the year of death of the original account owner. As such the 2015 RMD will be based off the oldest bene's LEF. Does that change any thoughts in regards to if one bene could still exhaust the RMD for the whole group since the distributions are not occurring in the year of death?

Assume: There are multiple non-spousal beneficiaries entitled to a portion of a qualified 401(k) account. The qualified account is still whole and has not been segregated into individual accounts for each beneficiary. Each of the beneficiaries will be either rolling over to an Inherited IRA or taking a cash distribution of their portion. A RMD is required of the account for the year in which the beneficiaries will be requesting a distribution. Does the RMD amount have to split between each of the beneficiaries equally? --Or-- If one of the beneficiaries takes a cash distribution of their portion of the account (and that amount satisfies the entire RMD due) do the other beneficiaries still have to receive a portion of the RMD as a cash distribution regardless or is the RMD considered exhausted by the one beneficiary electing a cash distribution?