Question

"Your customer, age 68, who has an IRA account at your firm valued at $500,000, passes away. The customer leaves the account to his wife, age 62, who does not work. She needs current income and wishes to receive payments over the longest time frame possible. You should advise the spouse to:"

Answer 1

My best advice for the spouse would be to designate herself as the new account owner, and since she is 62, she can start taking regular distributions from it. Any distributions that she takes will be taxed as ordinary income (the same rule would have applied to the late husband).

Step-by-step explanation:

If she had her own IRA account (which is doubtful since she doesn't work), she could also roll over her late spouse's balance into her own account.

The wife's third option would be to treat herself as a beneficiary, not the owner or spouse, but that would only complicate things and result in higher costs.