With the passage of the SECURE Act, once common IRA beneficiary planning strategies have been upended. For example, no longer can just anyone stretch payments on an inherited IRA. You must qualify as an ligible designated beneficiary (EDB) to stretch using your single life expectancy. As we have written many times, EDBs include surviving spouses, minor children of the account owner (up to majority, or if still in school, up to age 26), disabled and chronically ill individuals, and individuals not more than 10 years younger than the IRA owner.
All other living, breathing IRA beneficiaries will now use the 10-year rule. There are no annual required minimum distributions (RMDs) during the 10-year window, but the account must be emptied by the end of the tenth year after the year of death.
In light of these new beneficiary payout rules, it came as no surprise that people began thinking of ways to leverage them for maximum benefit. Can I structure a payout this way? What if I do this? Some ideas were creative, some destined to fail. Occasionally, an idea was imaginative enough that it demanded debate as to its legitimacy.
