Question:
Good Morning,
We have a client that passed away in November of 2019 at the age of 85. Her beneficiaries would be required to take their RMD in 2020. Are they eligible under the CARES Act to forgo that RMD for this year?
Thank you,
Linda
Are you questioning that IRA contribution you made for 2018? Maybe you made a Roth IRA contribution and then discovered your income was too high. Maybe you made a traditional IRA contribution but you were ineligible due to your age. You may have made a traditional contribution and just changed your mind. You’d rather contribute to a Roth IRA or maybe not contribute at all. There is good news if you act quickly. You can fix these issues by correcting your 2018 IRA contribution by the upcoming October 15, 2019 deadline.
October 15, 2019 Deadline
When it comes to the timing for correcting a contribution, the key deadline is October 15 of the year following the year for which the excess contribution is made.
It has been widely reported that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ability to recharacterize Roth IRA conversions as of January 1, 2018. On the other hand, it kept the ability to recharacterize IRA and Roth IRA contributions. Despite all of the above, an unanswered question on Roth IRA conversions done in 2017 lingered. At the time of those conversions the taxpayer had the ability to recharacterize the conversion up to October 15, 2018. Was that option still available to them?
The much anticipated Republican proposal for tax reform has been released in the form of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, an over-400 page long major rewrite of the Tax Code. It is sure to be controversial and subject to political dispute, and specific provisions are likely to change. Here's how the major provisions that most matter to helping your clients read now.
In a post last week, we talked about the Roth recharacterization deadline which is fast approaching. October 16, 2017 is the last date to recharacterize a 2016 Roth conversion. Another important deadline that is coming up is for trusts that became the beneficiaries of retirement assets in 2016. A qualifying trust can use the life expectancy of the oldest beneficiary of the trust to calculate required minimum distributions that are payable to the trust as the beneficiary of the IRA. A qualifying trust is often referred to as a look-through or see-through trust. There are four requirements that a trust has to meet in order to be a qualifying trust. From § 1.401(a)(9)-4, A-5.
Did you convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in 2016 and now you are reconsidering that move? Did you make a 2016 traditional IRA contribution and later discover the contribution was not deductible? Did you contribute to a Roth IRA, not knowing that your income was above the limits for eligibility? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, there is a deadline rapidly approaching that you will want to know about. That is the October 16, 2017 deadline for recharacterizing 2016 conversions and IRA contributions. Here are 8 things you need to know about recharacterization.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag looks into QCDs, RMDs, Rollover IRAs and Recharacterizations.
1. General Rule
As a general rule, the account balance used for calculating required minimum distributions (RMDs) is the prior year-end account balance, with no adjustments. For example, if you are calculating an RMD for 2017 you would use the 2016 year-end account balance. If you are calculating a missed RMD for 2014, you would use the 2013 year-end account balance. If you have your first RMD due for 2017 and you take that RMD in March of 2018, you still use the 2016 year-end account balance. As usual with retirement distribution rules, there are some exceptions to the general rule.
We received many questions this past tax season about Roth IRA conversions that were supposed to be tax-free, but were not.
Here are the 11 things you need to know at tax time.
