RMD Withholding Form W-4R or W-4P

For qualified plans, the tax withholding certificate for non-periodic payments and eligible rollover contributions is Form W-4R. For non-periodic payments, if no withholding election is made, the default withholding is 10%. For periodic payments made in regular installments over a period of more than one year, to elect withholding Form W-4P must be used. 

For RMD's they are clearly not eligible rollover contributions and are arguably not non-periodic payments but rather are typically regular payments that must be made to the participant for a period of more than a year. Thus, it's my view that if a participant wants tax withholding on an RMD that the Form W-4P rather than Form W-4R must be used. In fact, Form W-4R should have nothing to do with RMD's because if it did, then if no withholding election is made the Form W-4R mandates 10% withholding which should never apply to RMD's Any comments?

Absent details in the forms’ instructions, one might look to the definitions in Internal Revenue Code of 1986 § 3405 to draw a line between periodic and nonperiodic distributions.

Section 3405(e)’s definitions include these:

(2)   Periodic payment

The term “periodic payment” means a designated distribution which is an annuity or similar periodic payment.

(3)   Nonperiodic distribution

The term “nonperiodic distribution” means any designated distribution which is not a periodic payment.

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:26%20section:3405%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title26-section3405)&f=treesort&edition=prelim&num=0&jumpTo=true

That a distributee receives standing-instruction monthly, quarter-yearly, or yearly payments counted to meet § 401(a)(9) minimum-distribution amounts might not make those payments sufficiently “similar” to an annuity that a payment is a periodic payment within the meaning of § 3405(e)(2). If either the distributee or the payer has a right to end or change the arrangement, that might make it dissimilar.

If a plan precludes an annuity and similarly obligated payments, a plan’s administrator might prefer to treat minimum-distribution payments as nonperiodic. That way, the plan’s administration might use only one of the two withholding forms (for US payees).

Thank-you Peter.  This is very helpful. I was surprised that other than the "similar to an annuity" language I couldn't find any authority addressing whether ongoing required  minimum distributions would be deemed periodic payments.