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Bankruptcy & Inherited IRAs

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Minnesota bankruptcy attorney says that a debtor’s inherited IRA is different from a debtor’s personal/individual retirement account (IRA), is not an exempt asset under Bankruptcy Code §522(d)(12) of his bankruptcy property. The Bankruptcy Code normally, offers for two basic exemption regimes with the first one being ‘the statutory federal exemptions under 11 U.S.C. §522(d)’ and the second one is ‘exemptions under state or local law’.

A federal bankruptcy exemption is applicable for some tax-qualified retirement funds and accounts in particular to retirement funds exemption is available only for assets that are in a fund or account like – Qualified benefit and contribution plans that includes 401K plans; Qualified annuity plans and tax-sheltered 403(b) annuities; Traditional IRAs, SEP-IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs; Roth IRAs; qualified government plans overdue compensation plans of state or local governments or tax-exempt organizations; and tax-exempt organizations suggests Minneapolis bankruptcy lawyer.

Minnesota bankruptcy attorney explains in circumstances where an IRA holder assigns his/her spouse as recipient of his IRA and dies before exhaustion of the account, the existing spouse may allow the decedent’s IRA into his/her own IRA, or choose to treat the deceased’s IRA as his/her own IRA.

A nominated non-spouse recipient cannot treat the inherited IRA as his/her own. However, he/she is allowed to make a trustee-to-trustee transfer of the inherited amount to another IRA condition to that the ownership of the new IRA is made just like the ownership of the old IRA, specifically, in the name of the deceased for the advantage of the IRA recipient.

In a situations, where the account owner dies before his Required Beginning Date or RBD, (the Apr. 1 of the year after the year the owner reaches the age of 70 ½ (for IRA owners), the total balance in a participant’s plan account must be: distributed over five years after the account owner’s death, or distributed to (or for the benefit of) the nominated receiver, over the beneficiary’s life or over a period not extending beyond beneficiary’s life expectancy.

In case the account owner dies after his RBD a somewhat more liberal rules apply.

Minneapolis bankruptcy lawyer says according to the ‘New Bankruptcy rules’ by the Court an IRA inherited by a recipient is a non-exempt asset of the bankruptcy estate. The Court wraps up saying that funds in an inherited IRA are not funds planned for retirement purposes but given to the beneficiary without considering age or retirement status.

Filing for bankruptcy is something that needs your complete attention. Such financial matters are best taken care of by professional bankruptcy lawyers. Minnesota bankruptcy attorney will help you file a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition and also advice you on how not to disrepute your credit score.

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