Estate Planning Red Flag – Your spouse failed to designate you as beneficiary of his or her IRA

Description

Abstract: One advantage of inheriting an IRA from a spouse is that the other spouse is entitled to transfer the funds to a “spousal rollover IRA.” But what happens if the original IRA owner mistakenly named a trust as beneficiary of his or her IRA, or failed to name a beneficiary at all? This brief article details IRS guidance, in the form of a private letter ruling, related to this specific circumstance.