Inheriting an IRA

A person who inherits an IRA should be aware that there are a lot of complicated rules involved with such IRA's, and they should seek professional advice on how to handle them. For example, there are rules about how long you can keep the money in the IRA after inheriting it, depending on whether the beneficiaries are all individuals, or if some are non-profit organizations. Also, care should be taken if you are rolling over an inherited IRA. It must be rolled over directly into the recipient IRA, not paid to an individual first, as can be done with the usual IRA rollover. Professional help can sometimes steer you clear of an unnecessary tax hit.