Transferring inherited beneficiary roth ira?

[Guest dakota]

I recently inherited a roth ira from my father. It is currently set up at the broker where he did business as

My name beneficiary roth ira of my father's name

I believe this is the correct way it should be, and I did specifically fill out an inherited beneficiary roth ira with the broker when the account was established. Now, I want to transfer some of the inherited beneficiary roth ira to a different broker. (Actually, 2 different brokers, so that I will eventually have the original account and two additional inherited beneficiary roth ira accounts.) The question is, when I filled out the forms with one of the new brokerage houses, they only had a choice of a roth ira. Nothing specifically states that it is to be an inherited beneficiary roth ira. I suspect this brokerage house is simply not set up to handle this kind of account. I have not yet tried to actually transfer any assets into the new account, because I think the account they are setting up is not going to be the needed inherited beneficiary roth ira account. I noticed, for example, that the original application stated things like who was the original holder, what was his social security number, death certificate, and how I plan to take distributions (in 5 years or over my life time). The new application did not mention any thing about those things, so I suspect I may not be able to deal with them. Is this true? Or, can it just be a traditional roth ira as long as the entitle it "my name beneficiary roth ira of my father's name"?

[John G]

I can't answer the technical side of your question... you will get an accountant to respond. But I want to encourage you to go up the chain of command and talk to the IRA/Roth retirement account dept at headquarters for this brokerage. They are generally better trained than the clerk types you often find at the walk up desk, or the service staff that answer 800 phone calls.

Also, if you have substantial assets in this account, you may want to seek the advice and guidance of an experienced financial planner, tax lawyer or accountant before you act. You do not want to trigger problems because you had only a casual understanding of the regulations or worse still, relied on the comments from a brokerage.

You will also find that the inexpensive internet brokerage houses may not have the support staff to handle peculiar/rare transactions. They want to capture the mass market, not spend lots of money on special cases. They can and will turn down business that is "complicated".