Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits

53 / 507

Chapter 1: The Minimum Distribution Rules 53
See-through trust D) D)
Participant’s estate; a non-
see-through trust; any
nonindividual beneficiary.
E); 5-year rule
applies
E); life expectancy
of participant
Multiple beneficiaries F) F)
1.5.03 Road Map, cont.: RMDs in case of death BEFORE the RBD
To determine required distributions for retirement benefits of a participant who died before
his RBD, first complete the steps at Then read this First read the general
comments and caveats, and paragraph A. Then read the particular paragraph (B–F) that describes
the beneficiary. See Step 3, for explanation of the RBD.
A. RMD for year of death (regardless of who is beneficiary). Because the participant died
before his RBD, there is no RMD for the year of his death. See C). Required
distributions will begin, at the earliest, the year after the year of the participant’s death.
B. Surviving spouse is sole beneficiary. If the participant died before his RBD, leaving his
benefits to his surviving spouse as sole beneficiary, the ADP is the surviving spouse’s life
expectancy, unless the 5-year rule applies. Reg. A-1(a). See for
how to determine whether the 5-year rule applies; see for how to calculate
distributions under the 5-year rule. See for meaning of “spouse is sole beneficiary.”
Se for how to calculate RMDs based on the spouse’s life expectancy. Se
for when distributions to the spouse must commence (Required Commencement Date). See
and for what happens if the spouse, having survived the participant, dies
before that Required Commencement Date. See an E) for what happens
if the spouse, having survived the participant and lived beyond her Required
Commencement Date, dies before having withdrawn all of the benefits. See ¶ 3.2 for the
surviving spouse’s ability to roll over the inherited benefits to another retirement plan; see
A), (B), for RMD effects of such a rollover.
General Comments and Caveats
Post-death RMDs from a Roth IRA are always determined using rules in this
(never ¶ . Reg. A-14(b).
In all cases, see ¶ for the ability of the plan to require faster distribution of the
benefits than the RMD rules would require.
See regarding the ability of the participant’s surviving spouse to roll benefits over
to her own IRA (or elect to treat an inherited IRA as her own); such a rollover or election would
change the RMD rules applicable to the rolled over benefits; see ¶ A), (B), for RMD
effects.