What Will Happen To Your Retirement Plans After You’re Gone?

Few people truly understand what could happen to their retirement plans after they pass away. In theory, leaving retirement plans to your heirs seems easy. In real life though, what happens to retirement accounts after the death of a plan owner is oftentimes surprising.
There are numerous reasons for surprises. For example, sometimes the right people are not listed because a beneficiary designation form was not updated after a divorce, marriage, death, or a birth, and this results in unintended beneficiaries. Another common shock occurs when retirement plans are left to children who are not ready to handle the funds. First of all, if the funds are left to a minor, a court guardianship will likely be needed. Second, if a retirement account is left to a child through a living trust which does not have conduit provisions, that plan could be forced into paying out in five years or less, causing an acceleration of taxes and loss of tax deferral opportunities.
What’s the big deal? The answer is best illustrated with an example: if you leave a $100,000 IRA to a 30 year old child and the funds earn an average of 7% per year over the life of the child, (which according to the IRS is 53 years) the IRA value would be $1,026,533. A $100,000 IRA left to an even younger grandchild can easily reach $2,000,000. Conversely, when retirement accounts are left outright, most children take out the funds in 6 months or less, according to the IRS.
What’s more, is even if your beneficiaries can resist the temptation to take the money, there are now creditor protection dangers. That’s because of a 2014 Supreme Court case, where the court ruled that inherited IRAs are no longer protected in bankruptcy. The ramifications of this decision reach far and wide. Today, divorcing spouses, business partners, banks, etc., can attach inherited retirement accounts. The only way to ensure that stretch-out opportunities are not lost – as well as your heirs being able to receive asset protection on your retirement account(s) – is through the use of a Retirement Trust.
To set up a Retirement Trust for your family, please contact Randall F. Kaiden, Esq. of Kaiden Elder Law Group, PC at (661) 247-8433, or via our website: www.kaidenelderlaw.com.