Suze Orman on Inherited IRA RMDs: Do You Owe One Every Year of the 10-Year Window?

On the March 19, 2026 episode of Suze Orman’s Women & Money, a listener named Kim asked the question every traditional IRA heir eventually faces. She had inherited two non-spouse traditional IRAs, knew the money had to come out within 10 years, and wanted to know whether she had to take a required minimum distribution every single year or could time the withdrawals when it suited her best. The decedent was 62 and had never taken a withdrawal. Kim is 68, retired, and not yet collecting Social Security.

Get this wrong in the wrong direction and you either pay a penalty for a missed RMD or you bunch a six-figure withdrawal into a single tax year and watch your marginal bracket explode. Suze gave Kim a clear answer. I want to walk through why that answer is correct, and where the rule flips for other heirs.

The verdict: Kim does not owe an annual RMD

Suze is right. Under the SECURE Act, Kim falls into the bucket of non-spouse beneficiaries who must empty the inherited IRAs by the end of year 10, but who do not owe yearly RMDs along the way. The reason sits in one detail most heirs miss: the decedent was 62 and had not taken a single withdrawal.

That matters because the IRS splits inherited IRA treatment based on whether the original owner died before or after their required beginning date (RBD), which for traditional IRAs is April 1 of the year after the owner turns 73. A 62-year-old had not reached RBD. When death happens before RBD, a non-eligible designated beneficiary gets the 10-year rule with no interim RMDs. Empty by year 10. That is the whole obligation.

The math Kim should actually run

Say the two inherited IRAs total $400,000. Kim has until December 31 of year 10 to clear them. Three realistic paths:

1. Equal annual draws. Roughly $40,000 a year. Predictable, but it stacks taxable income on top of any future Social Security and pension income she eventually turns on.
2. Front-load the low-income years. Kim is 68, retired, and has not started Social Security. Her taxable income right now may be unusually low. Pulling $60,000 to $70,000 a year for the first four or five years, while she is still in the 12% or 22% bracket, can drain most of the account before Social Security and age-73 RMDs from her own IRA push her into a higher bracket.
3. Wait and balloon in year 10. Legal, but punishing. A $400,000 lump sum in a single year throws her into the 32% or 35% federal bracket and likely triggers IRMAA Medicare surcharges. This is the path the no-annual-RMD rule lets you take. It is almost never the path you should take.

The freedom to skip annual RMDs exists so you can smooth taxable income across the years you control.

The variable that flips the answer

Change one fact and Kim’s answer changes. If the decedent had been 75 and already taking RMDs, Kim would be inheriting from someone past their RBD. In that case, the 10-year rule still applies, but she would also owe annual RMDs in years one through nine, calculated on her own single life expectancy. Year 10 still has to zero out the account.

There is a second exception worth knowing. A beneficiary who is less than 10 years younger than the decedent is an eligible designated beneficiary and can stretch withdrawals over their own life expectancy rather than emptying the account in 10 years. Suze has made this point repeatedly on the podcast. Siblings close in age, for example, often qualify.

What to do this week if you inherited an IRA

1. Confirm the decedent’s age at death and whether they had reached their required beginning date. That single fact determines whether annual RMDs are owed inside the 10-year window.
2. Confirm your status: eligible designated beneficiary (spouse, minor child, disabled, chronically ill, or less than 10 years younger) or non-eligible. The first group can stretch. The second group is on the 10-year clock.
3. Project your taxable income for each of the next 10 years. Mark the low-bracket years. Those are the years to pull more, not less.
4. Run the numbers before the calendar runs them for you. A balloon withdrawal in year 10 is the most expensive way to follow the law.

Kim got a clean answer because her facts were clean. The rule that freed her from annual RMDs is the same rule that will trap the next heir who assumes it applies to them. Check the decedent’s age first. Everything else flows from there.