"In the case of retirement accounts, the IRS and Treasury have created the 'see-through' trust rules that allow post-death required minimum distributions to occur based on the life expectancy of the underlying trust beneficiaries. However, in the case of annuities, no see-through trust rules exist, compelling trusts to instead liquidate inherited annuities over the far-less-favorable 5-year rule! As a result, consideration of whether to use a trust as the beneficiary of an annuity must weigh the adverse tax consequences against the favorable/desired non-tax provisions of the trust."