Excerpt: The latest guidance ... adds some new elements, including: advancing the deadline for determining a designated beneficiary from Dec. 31 to Sept. 30 of the year after a plan participant's year of death, making it easier to determine the initial distribution that must be made by the end of that year; clarifying rules related to separate accounts with different beneficiaries; [and] simplifying the calculation of required minimum distributions (RMDs) by eliminating certain variables.