Stretch IRAs survive under tax bill

Photo: morguefile.com

Q. I enjoyed your recent article about proposed changes to Stretch IRA rules. How would the proposed rules effect current inherited IRAs? I tried reading the bill and I didn’t see this issue addressed.
— Need clarification

A. You ducked a sticky one here.

Stretch IRAs won’t be impacted by the tax bill, now that all the wrangling is done.

“They had preliminarily discussed a five-year payout on those IRAs instead of being able to `stretch’ out payments over the beneficiary’s life expectancy, said Kenneth Bagner, a certified public accountant with Sobel and Co. in Livingston.

This would not allow the beneficiary to be able to “stretch” the IRA over their lifetime, Bagner said.

The value lost would have been a loss of growth in the IRAs and overall income deferral reduced from life expectancy to five years, he said.

At least for now, that’s not a worry.

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This post was first published in December 2017.

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