My father recently died and I will receive approximately $65,000 mostly from an IRA. What will my taxes be?

Question

He lived in Nevada and I live in Ohio. I will receive about $3000 from his personal possessions/property, $7000 from a bank account, $55,000 from an IRA.

Answer 1

handy dan is correct
here's what it says about this in IRS pub 590 (link provided)

IRA Inherited from someone other than spouse. If you inherit a traditional IRA from anyone other than your deceased spouse, you cannot treat the inherited IRA as your own. This means that you cannot make any contributions to the IRA. It also means you cannot roll over any amounts into or out of the inherited IRA. However, you can make a trustee-to-trustee transfer as long as the IRA into which amounts are being moved is set up and maintained in the name of the deceased IRA owner for the benefit of you as beneficiary.

Like the original owner, you generally will not owe tax on the assets in the IRA until you receive distributions from it. You must begin receiving distributions from the IRA under the rules for distributions that apply to beneficiaries.

Answer 2

Heidi, Judy and Acmeraven are correct; the others above theirs are incomplete or incorrect.

There is no tax on the cash principal of the bank account, and the personal possessions/property get "stepped-up basis" as explained earlier.

You need to consult a qualified tax preparer or CPA about the effects of withdrawing the IRA. The financial institution holding the IRA may offer some information, (they probably won't give tax advice) but you said they are not in your local area. You should be able to roll it over into your name, with it remaining in an IRA, and take distributions over your lifetime. If you have siblings who share the proceeds of that account, the amount you must withdraw may depend on the oldest sibling's age.

If you were my client, I would want to look at what tax bracket you are currently in, and make sure that your withdrawals didn't put you in the next bracket. For instance, if you are in a 15% bracket, take all you can this year without moving into the 25% bracket, and do the same next year, assuming you need the funds. If you don't need them right away, leave them in an IRA in your name and take out only what is required so that they can continue to grow (we hope) tax-deferred.

Thanks to HandyDan for providing clarification.

Answer 3

The rules for IRA's are different from what previous responders have said. It's correct that if you don't cash in the IRA you can most likely continue to defer taxes on it, and just pay them when you do take the money out. But you don't get the "stepped up basis" benefit - you'll pay taxes on the whole amount, assuming it was funded with pre-tax dollars.

Answer 4

Just a clarification on what the previous poster said:

"You should be able to roll it over into your name, with it remaining in an IRA, and take distributions over your lifetime."

In order to do what is often called a "stretch" of an inherited IRA, you do not want to roll it over into your name. The IRS would disallow that and deem it to be an immediate total distribution.

As odd as it seems, the "owner" of the IRA needs to remain the deceased. The IRA needs to be retitled to something along the lines of "The IRA of [father's name}, deceased, for the benefit of [beneficiary's name]." You will only be required to take required minimum distributions based upon your life expectancy and, hopefully, can allow the IRA to continue to grow.

Answer 5

Discuss this with the attorney handling the estate. If the IRA is cashed out by the estate your inherited amount will be tax free to you as the estate pays any taxes due. If you receive the IRA as a POD you will have to talk to the administrator for the IRA and see what your options are. You may be able to leave it "in situ", roll it over into one in your name, or possibly something else. Talk to the administrator and get a plain english answer.

Answer 6

Sorry to hear about your father.
If you DO NOT cash in the IRA you should not have to pay any taxes on it. (Talk to an accountant to make sure)
If you decide to cash in the IRA talk to an accountant to see if you can use the "step up in tax cost basis" rule. If you can use it, that means that you will pay taxes only on the amount that the IRA has increased since the date of his death.
So if his IRA was worth $54,000 on the day of his death, then you would only pay taxes on the $1,000 that his IRA has increased since the date of his passing.

Answer 7

Between 20-40 % of that. So at the most you will recieve $52,000 and at the least you will get $39,000. I hope its not the latter...

You may want to check tax restrictions on each category of the monies you are getting by calling the IRS directly.

Good luck! :)