Change of bene after marriage
Back in 2017 our client who lives in a community property or marital property state has named her siblings on her IRA and Roth. Our client has recently been married and we are wondering something. If our client wants to keep her siblings as her named primary beneficiaries and not add her spouse, is the client required to have the spouse sign a disclaimer? Or since her siblings have been named prior to her marriage, it’s not necessary?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Wed, 2018-09-05 18:24
It is best to have the situation made transparent to all parties to prevent potential costly litigation post death. Generalizations are difficult in this area because IRA beneficiary clauses may attempt to intervene in the various community property statutes of certain states. That said, in this situation the IRA custodian is very likely to not be aware of the marriage and not take any action. Since assets owned prior to marriage are generally not community property unless commingled, this client should not make new contributions to this IRA and should be very careful about rollovers from other accounts to avoid commingling. Once commingled, if the spouse takes legal action post death, it will be costly and time consuming. Therefore, client should open a new IRA for any future contributions and for rollover contributions that are not clearly also separate pre marriage property. Of course, it is also recommended that the client discuss the situation with her new spouse as well, and also with her IRA custodian. Unfortunately, many taxpayers are satisfied to leave such situations to chance and push potential problems to after their demise.
Permalink Submitted by monic ca on Fri, 2021-10-15 08:16
cool