Ask the Expert: 2 questions about required minimum distributions from IRAs
My wife is 66 this year, and plans on taking her first required minimum distribution (RMD). Can she wait until she’s 72 to take the next one?
Nobody must take an RMD before age 72. Your wife is over age 59½, so she can take taxable individual retirement account distributions without an early-withdrawal penalty. But she doesn’t have to take a distribution until she’s 72; and from then on, she must take one every year.
Please explain the new Uniform Lifetime Table for calculating annual RMDs, and tell me where I can find a copy.
For readers who don’t know, retirement account RMDs are based on the account owner's life expectancy as it appears on the Internal Revenue Service's Uniform Life Expectancy actuarial table. This year, the IRS adopted a new table that gives everybody a slightly longer life expectancy. (For a link to the new tables, see "More information," below.)
The new table is good news for people taking RMDs because a slightly longer life expectancy means a slightly smaller RMD — and therefore a slightly smaller tax bill.
For example, on the old Uniform Lifetime Table a 75-year-old had a 22.9 life expectancy factor. Her RMD from a $950,000 IRA was $41,485 ($950,000 divided by 22.9.) The new table gives her a 24.6 life expectancy factor. Her RMD is $38,618 ($950,000 divided by 24.6.)
Anyone taking 2022 RMDs can use the new table, says Ed Slott, a Rockville Centre tax accountant. But you can't use it if you turned 72 in 2021 and postponed taking your first RMD until this year, he adds. If you're taking a delayed 2021 RMD, you must use the 2021 table.
The bottom line
Starting this year, required minimum distributions from retirement accounts are based on a new actuarial table.
More information
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