Author Description

Inheriting Your Spouse's IRA is a planning guide navigating estate tax and legal maze associated IRA universe. This guide includes the new tax rules and limitations brought about by the recent SECURE Act. As a couple, one of the greatest gifts you can give one another is the gift of preparedness. But one of you will live a few – or many – years without the other. That’s where estate planning comes in. And estate planning is much more than just having wills and other instruments in place. It’s also about how those accumulated resources will support the surviving spouse for as long as needed. Until this book, one area that receives very little attention is that of a surviving spouse’s inherited IRA. The IRA is one of the most common assets a couple will have in their portfolio. About $25 trillion is held in retirement assets in the U.S., so inheriting a deceased spouse’s IRA touches almost everyone. Widows, who are the sole beneficiary of their husband’s IRAs, enjoy special tax treatment if they are set up correctly. As the widow, she would have options of how to receive the IRA, including: establishing an ‘inherited IRA’ doing a spousal rollover, or unintentionally, just failing to choose an option Would you know the difference between those options and the benefits of each? The scary part is that many decisions are irrevocable. Mistakes can wipe out significant portions of inheritances. Take the tax court case of Charlotte Gee, her mistakes cost her a penalty of nearly $100,000. This book will make sure you never makes those mistakes. Widows face other traps and hurdles that can cause financial injury on their inheritances: the widows tax the Social Security ‘tax torpedo’ the surtax on net investment income IRMAA, Medicare Part B (medical insurance) and Medicare Part D (prescription drug coverage) surcharges Tax traps that weren’t triggered when married but are kicking in now that tax thresholds are at lower bracke