Many IRA owners do not know that the "pretax" characteristic of an IRA can result in huge tax problems for beneficiaries. If an IRA owner dies in his or her eighties with adult children in their forties and fifties, those beneficiaries could easily receive a large inheritance, in which all of it is taxable. They may earn high taxable incomes already; this inheritance could send them into the highest tax brackets, and much of what they inherit would be lost.
However, you can stretch out the time that your money can stay in an IRA in order to defer income tax. Since 2001, IRA owners have been able to take smaller Minimum Required Distributions (MRDs) and postpone distributions until age 70. IRA benefits can now be stretched over a long period, potentially reducing current income taxes and increasing long-term benefits to family members. |
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