RMD Online Calculator for Defined Benefit Plans

[Guest ERISAQUEEN]

I have found many helpful web sites that offer RMD calculators for "account balance" retirement plans. I have not located a similar site for defined benefit plans. Please let me know if you have found a web site that caclulates RMDs for defined benefit plans.

Thanks!

[Mike Preston]

There are no on-line calculators for RMD's from DB plans because the final regs require that a participant commence benefits under the plan. Hence, the RMD is plan specific.

The regs allow a plan to provide an optional form of benefit to a participant that will closely mimic what the DC minimum would be. It ranges from 102% to about 110% of what the DC minimum would be. But the plan has to offer that optional form within the four corners of the document and the participant has to elect it - it can't just be conjured up by the Plan Administrator in an effort to reduce the otherwise payable RMD. In the absence of this optional form, the DB minimum will sometimes be as much as twice the DC minimum.