As employer-sponsored pensions started to go by the wayside in the latter half of the 20th century, workers started to craft their own retirement plans. Often, those plans included an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). If the owner of an IRA dies, the person(s) designated as the beneficiary inherits the funds held in the account. If you are that beneficiary, you undoubtedly want to know if an inherited IRA is taxable to the beneficiary.
What Happens to an IRA When the Account Owner Dies?
When a participant in a retirement plan dies, benefits the participant would have been entitled to are usually paid to the participant’s designated beneficiary in a form provided by the terms of the plan (lump-sum distribution or an annuity).
Many retirement plans require the account owner to name a spouse as the beneficiary unless he/she signs a form allowing the owner to name someone else as the beneficiary. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) protects surviving spouses of deceased participants who had earned a vested pension benefit before their death. The nature of the protection depends on the type of plan and whether the participant dies before or after payment of the pension benefit is scheduled to begin, otherwise known as the annuity starting date.
Assets held in a retirement account can be paid out to the beneficiary shortly after the owner’s death because retirement accounts are “non-probate” assets, meaning they bypass the probate process. Depending upon the type of plan, and whether the participant died before or after retirement payments had started, the plan administrator should provide the beneficiary with the following information after the beneficiary submits a certified death certificate:
- the amount and form of benefits (in other words, lump sum or installment payments under an annuity);
- whether death benefit payments from the plan may be rolled over into another retirement plan; and
- if a rollover is possible, the method and time period in which the rollover must be made.
Is an IRA Subject to Federal Gift and Estate Tax?
Every taxpayer’s gross estate is potentially subject to federal gift and estate taxes at the time of the death in the United States. The gift and estate tax is effectively a tax on the transfer of wealth. A gross estate includes anything a decedent owned at the time of death that has value, including retirement accounts, such as IRAs. For estate tax purposes, the value of an IRA isn’t affected by whether it’s a traditional or Roth IRA. Fortunately, each taxpayer is entitled to make use of the lifetime exemption to reduce the amount of gift and estate taxes owed by their estate. ATRA set the lifetime exemption amount at $5 million, to be adjusted for inflation each year. For 2018, the lifetime exemption amount would be $5.49 million for an individual and $10,980,000 for a married couple; however, President Trump signed tax legislation into law that changed the lifetime exemption amount for 2018 and for several years to come. Under the new law, the exemption amounts increased to $11,200,000 for individuals and $22,400,000 for married couples. These exemption amounts are scheduled to increase with inflation each year until 2025. On January 1, 2026, the exemption amounts are scheduled to revert to the 2017 levels, adjusted for inflation. The lifetime exemption may reduce a taxable estate enough that the estate will not owe taxes; however, when creating an estate plan the value of an IRA should always be considered in case the estate does end up owing estate taxes.
Options and Taxes for an Inherited IRA
If you inherit a traditional IRA from your spouse, you generally have the following three choices:
- Treat it as your own IRA by designating yourself as the account owner.
- Treat it as your own by rolling it over into a traditional IRA, or to the extent it is taxable, into a:
- Qualified employer plan
- Qualified employee annuity plan (section 403(a) plan)
- Tax-sheltered annuity plan (section 403(b) plan)
- Deferred compensation plan of a state or local government (section 457(b) plan), or
- Treat yourself as the beneficiary rather than treating the IRA as your own.
If you inherit an IRA from someone other than your spouse, you cannot treat it as your own. This means that you cannot make any contributions to the IRA or roll over any amounts into or out of the inherited IRA.
A beneficiary of a traditional IRA will generally not owe tax on the assets in the IRA until the beneficiary receives distributions from it.
As a general rule, the entire interest in a Roth IRA must be distributed by the end of the fifth calendar year after the year of the owner’s death unless the interest is payable to a designated beneficiary over the life or life expectancy of the designated beneficiary. If paid as an annuity, the entire interest must be payable over a period not greater than the designated beneficiary’s life expectancy and distributions must begin before the end of the calendar year following the year of death.
If the sole beneficiary is the spouse, he or she can either delay distributions until the decedent would have reached age 70½ or treat the Roth IRA as his or her own.
Contact Illinois Retirement Planning Attorneys
Please join us for an upcoming FREE estate planning seminar. If you have additional questions or concerns about how an IRA is taxed upon the death of the owner, contact the experienced Illinois retirement planning attorneys at Hedeker Law, Ltd. by calling (847) 913-5415 to schedule an appointment.
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