Incapacity of IRA Owner

[Guest halka]

"Senior" IRA owner is receiving RMDs and becomes mentally incapacitated (no legal guardian appointed). IRA beneficiary is child of first marriage. Spouse #2 wants to accelerate IRA withdrawals "to support spouse IRA owner." IRA agreement does not address situation. Spouse #2 has a general power of attorney (which does not specifially mention the IRA). Are there any federal precedents, rules, experiences on this or is it simply a state law question?

Thanks for any help.

[BPickerCPA]

I have never seen an IRA where the IRA holder could not accelerate distributions. So the only question here is whether "senior" can and will sign the necessary papers, and if not, can anyone sign them for him. But clearly, if spouse has a general POA, she should be able to withdraw his IRA money. And if it's used for his care, I don't think the beneficiary has any legal basis to complain. A beneficiary has no legal right, except to get what's left when the IRA holder dies. There is no requirement that there, in fact, be anything left.

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Barry Picker, CPA/PFS, CFP

New York, NY