IRS Finalizes Rules on Roth IRA Disbursements

The Internal Revenue Service has released final regulations for disbursements from Roth individual retirement accounts, removing the allocation rule for disbursements from designated Roth accounts to multiple destinations.

The final regulations eliminate a requirement that each disbursement from a designated Roth account that is directly rolled over to an eligible retirement plan be treated as a separate distribution from any amount paid directly to the employee and therefore separately subject to the rule in section 72(e)(2) of the Tax Code allocating pretax and after-tax amounts to each distribution.

As a result of this change, according to the IRS, if disbursements are made from a taxpayer’s designated Roth account to the taxpayer and also to the taxpayer’s Roth IRA or designated Roth account in a direct rollover, then pretax amounts will be allocated first to the direct rollover, rather than being allocated pro rata to each destination.

In addition, a taxpayer will be able to direct the allocation of pretax and after-tax amounts that are included in disbursements from a designated Roth account that are directly rolled over to multiple destinations, applying the same allocation rules to distributions from designated Roth accounts that apply to distributions from other types of accounts.

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Tax practice Tax planning Financial planning Tax regulations Retirement planning
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