Her Late Husband’s IRA Is Now Hers. The Choice She Has to Make, in Plain English

A widow who is the sole beneficiary of her husband’s traditional IRA has one decision that sets her withdrawal schedule for years: make the account her own, or keep it as an inherited IRA. IRS Publication 590-B covers both ways. Each one is laid out below with a single hypothetical household.

Example Inputs Used Throughout

• She is 72 in 2026 and was born in 1954.
• He died in 2026 at 75. He was born in 1951 and had not yet taken his 2026 withdrawal.
• She is the only named beneficiary.
• The IRA held $500,000 on December 31, 2025. This example assumes it also holds $500,000 on December 31, 2026.

A required minimum distribution (RMD) is the minimum amount the IRS requires you to take each year. For anyone born from January 1, 1951, through 1958, RMDs start at age 73. The required beginning date is April 1 of the year following the year an owner reaches that age. Her husband had already passed his required beginning date, so the IRS rules for an owner who died on or after that date apply.

His 2026 Withdrawal Comes First

When an owner dies on or after the required beginning date, “the IRA beneficiaries are responsible for figuring and distributing the owner’s required minimum distribution in the year of death,” figured as if he lived the whole year and generally based on Table III, the Uniform Lifetime table. At his age of 75, the Table III divisor is 24.6. On $500,000, his 2026 RMD comes to about $20,325.

A missed RMD carries an excise tax of 25% of the shortfall. The rate falls to 10% if the shortfall is fixed within the correction window.

Option 1: Treat the IRA as Her Own

She can name herself as the account owner, or she can roll the money into her own IRA. Either way, the account becomes hers. This option is open only to someone who is the sole beneficiary with an unlimited right to withdraw. A spouse who shares the account with other beneficiaries can still roll a distribution that is not a required distribution into her own IRA within the 60-day time limit.

When RMDs begin: on her own schedule. Because she was born in 1954, her RMD age is 73, so her first RMD is for 2027.

How they are calculated: as an owner, she uses Table III. At 73 the divisor is 26.5, so $500,000 produces about $18,868 for 2027.

Who she names: she fills out her own beneficiary designation as the owner. Her heirs then inherit under the beneficiary rules that apply to her account.

Option 2: Keep It as an Inherited IRA

She remains a beneficiary of his account. A surviving spouse counts as an eligible designated beneficiary, which means she is exempt from the SECURE Act rule that most heirs must empty the account within ten years. (That ten-year rule is one of nine IRS traps that quietly drain inherited retirement accounts, all charted in our free tax trap map.)

When RMDs begin: he died after his required beginning date, so her beneficiary RMDs start for the year after his death. In this example, that is 2027.

How they are calculated: the divisor is the longer of her single life expectancy in Table I or the owner’s life expectancy. A surviving spouse who is the sole beneficiary looks up her Table I figure again each year. At 73, her figure is 16.4. His figure starts at 14.8 for age 75 and drops by 1 each year, so hers is the longer one. Dividing $500,000 by 16.4 gives about $30,488 for 2027. That is roughly $11,620 more taxable income than under Option 1.

Who she names: her own beneficiaries must keep taking RMDs, and the remaining balance generally must be distributed within 10 years after her death.

Married Versus Single: Before and After

Deadlines and Custodian Paperwork

• Election or rollover: naming herself as owner or moving the money into her own IRA requires paperwork with the IRA custodian. A rollover of a distribution has a 60-day limit.
• Automatic switch: the IRS treats her as having chosen Option 1 if contributions are made to the inherited account, or if she doesn’t take the required minimum distribution for a year as a beneficiary.
• September 30, 2027: the designated beneficiary is generally determined on September 30 of the calendar year following the year of death. A person who disclaims the inheritance before that date is not counted.
• Pending rules: under Announcement 2026-7, dated March 9, 2026, parts of future final RMD regulations will apply no earlier than 6 months after they are published. Until then, taxpayers must use a reasonable good-faith reading of the law.

Paperwork to Pull First

Start with the beneficiary designation form for the IRA, kept on file with the custodian. It shows whether she is the sole beneficiary, and that decides whether Option 1 is available to her. Next, get the custodian’s spousal election form, the document that records which ways the account will take.

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