Gee, Whose IRA Was It? The Issues of Surviving Spouses and IRAs

Published: July 29, 2006, 12:50 a.m.

b'Is a distribution made to a surviving spouse that was rolled to her IRA but can be traced to her deceased spouse\'s IRA account eligible for the death benefit exception to Section 72(t)?\\xa0 Considering a nearly $100,000 penalty was on the table, the taxpayer in the case of Gee v. Commissioner (127 TC No. 1) certainly hoped the Tax Court would answer yes.\\xa0

Unfortunately for her, the Tax Court answered in the negative.\\xa0 We look at the facts of her case, as well as the whole question of whether a surviving spouse should elect to treat an IRA as his/her own or take it as a beneficiary.

The materials can be downloaded at http://www.edzollars.com/2006-07-29_IRA_Spouse.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services (who had an email newsletter on this topic earlier this week), located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .
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