Required Minimum Distributions – Four Things to Know about RMDs

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress had suspended the rules for RMDs in 2020, but the rules have been restored for the 2021 tax year. Here are four things to know about RMDs.

1. As a reminder, the SECURE Act pushed the required beginning date for RMDs to age 72 as of 2020. Therefore, if you turn 72 this year, then you must begin taking distributions from qualified plans and IRAs by April 1st, 2022.
2. RMD rules apply to both employer-based retirement plans and traditional IRAs. Roth IRAs – unless they are inherited – are exempt from distributions.
3. The amount of your annual RMD depends on the value of the account as of December 31 of the prior year. You may take more than the IRS-required amount, but make sure you consider you overall cash flow needs and overall estate planning before taking more than required.
4. Inherited accounts should be examined closely. For inherited accounts where the original owner died after 2019, a non-spouse beneficiary is generally required to complete withdrawals by December 31 of the tenth year after the original owner’s death. RMD rules for accounts inherited prior to 2020 are calculated differently. If the account owner dies after the required beginning date and has not taken an RMD for the year of death, then the beneficiaries of the account must take the account owner’s RMD as a distribution for that year. Spousal beneficiaries have greater flexibility than non-spousal beneficiaries, including being able to treat the account as his or her own, regardless of when the original owner died.

For assistance with your RMDs or other legal matters associated with Business or Estate Planning, please contact Fournier Legal Services at 860.670.3535 or info@jeflegal.com

Joseph Fournier

Joseph E. Fournier is an Attorney and a CPA who has more than twenty years of experience in a variety of business legal matters, including start-ups and company formations, drafting shareholder and operating agreements, contracts, employment law, commercial litigation, tax planning and audit defense, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He also handles estate planning matters, such as business succession planning, wills, trusts, and probate.