19 Dec How do I figure out RMDs from an inherited IRA?

Q. I lost my mother last May. I am inheriting half of their IRA — $ 22,326.83 — held at Mutual of America and the other half goes to their other daughter. My co-beneficiary got hers in the form of a check for the whole amount of my mother’s final RMD: $5954, and the rest was moved into her own IRA, $16,290. Mine was the whole amount of my share of the IRA, without any separate check. So what is my RMD for each year? I had planned to take enough to cover my utility bills but my advisor says it’s not enough.
— Beneficiary

A. We’re sorry to hear about your mom.

When you inherit an IRA from someone who is not your spouse the rules can be tricky.

The first rule is you must take all the money out of the IRA and pay applicable taxes by the end of the tenth year after you inherited it, said Bernie Kiely, a certified financial planner and certified public accountant with Kiely Capital Management in Morristown.

That’s the easy part, he said.

“If the original owner was not old enough to be required to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) then you do not have to do anything for ten years if you don’t want to,” he said. “At the end of the ten years, you would withdraw all the funds and pay taxes on it.”

If the decedent was 73 or older and was required to take RMDs, then you as the inheritor must continue to take RMDs based on your own life expectancy, Kiely said.

“It appears your mother was 73 or older and was taking her RMDs. The problem is all her 2025 RMD was taken out of the co-beneficiary’s half and not split between the two of you,” he said.

If the RMD check has not yet been cashed, Kiely recommends it be returned to Mutual of America. She should ask them to redo it properly.

“If the check has been cashed then the distribution will have to be reported on the co-beneficiary’s tax return,” he said. “As it stands the co-beneficiary got the short end of the stick. A small transfer of funds from you to her could mend things. That is something you would have to discuss with her.”

Going forward, you must take RMDs from the inherited IRA based on your life expectancy.

To do this you must use the IRS’ Single Life Expectancy Table For Use by Beneficiaries. You can find this table in IRS Publication 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs).

“Using this table, you would take an RMD for each year from 2026 to 2035,” Kiely said. “After you took your 2035 RMD you would then withdraw whatever is left in the account so that it would be empty by the end of 2035 the tenth year after Mom’s passing.”

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This story was originally published in December 2025.

NJMoneyHelp.com presents certain general financial planning principles and advice, but should never be viewed as a substitute for obtaining advice from a personal professional advisor who understands your unique individual circumstances.