How Do You Avoid Estate Taxes With Iras?
If you inherit an IRA from your spouse, you can either change the account name, roll it into your own existing IRA or treat yourself as the beneficiary of the IRA. As a surviving spouse, the IRA will not be taxable for estate tax purposes. If a traditional IRA is inherited from someone other than your spouse, you cannot treat the IRA as your own. Remain the beneficiary if you inherited the IRA from someone other than your spouse. You may also remain the beneficiary if your inherited from your spouse and do not want to take ownership of the account or contribute to the account. Transfer the account to your name if you want to become the owner or rollover an IRA you inherited from your spouse. If you have an existing IRA, you can rollover that account into the inherited IRA or you can rollover the inherited IRA into your existing IRA. Take any required IRA distributions if you inherit a traditional IRA from someone other than your spouse and report the amounts received as taxable income.
