IRA payments to child treated as paymnents to spouse

[Guest Parker]

I’m hoping someone can help me out on a kind of technical question. I’m looking for an explanation of Tax Code section 401(a)(9)(F). The section states that "... any amount paid to a child shall be treated as if it had been paid to the surviving spouse if such amount will become payable to the surviving spouse upon such child reaching majority(or other designated event permitted under regulation)."

I think the intent of this section is to allow a surviving spouse/beneficiary to treat an inherited IRA as his or her own, even though a dependent child is scheduled to receive payments from the IRA after the IRA owners death and up until the child reaches majority (age 18??).

However, I can't find any tax regulations that talk about this section, or any other information from other publications. The closest I came was a footnote in a 1993 BNA publication that said the IRS hadn’t "provided any such other events, or otherwise promulagated regulations that elaborate upon this statutory provision."

Any thoughts or citations would be appreciated.