An inherited IRA must be fully distributed within 10 years, but RMDs must also be taken during those 10 years. These was some confusion about this, and the IRS recently issued guidance clarifying the requirements.
I had not heard that there was a shorter timeframe for Roth IRAs.
Edit: note that the new rules apply to IRAs owned by people who died after 2020.
But some less honorable banks get around this by instituting a customer ‘inactivity fee’ where they charge $x against the account, and deduct that from the base amount. But surprise! – that counts as a transaction during the year, so the bank doesn’t have to turn it over to the State Treasury.
It may take many years, but eventually the entire abandoned account is used up, paid in fees to the bank. But the corporation can afford to wait.
Most states take the money from a CD if there’s no activity for a set length of time. Given what you say, the state has taken it over.
The states have lists of unclaimed accounts online. You can claim your money from the state; the procedure and documentation variy (though they are not unreasonable). Look for unclaimed accounts web pages.
Note that the account earns no interest once the state takes it over.
If I were you, I’d call the bank to see if it’s possible to handle this via mail.
I’ll definitely call and confirm these cd’s are still valid.
There is always the chance they expired and my mom did something else with the money.
I’ve had to go over the new rules on this recently, and I’ve not seen anything regarding 5 years for a ben. Roth. Do you have a cite for that?
There is a 5 year rule for Roth IRAs, but as far as I can determine it has to do with the age of the IRA. A Roth IRA needs to have been created at least 5 years before any earnings can be taken tax free. That seems separate from the RMD rules. I think that an inherited Roth IRA still has a 10 year period for the beneficiary to take the money for Roth IRAs where the original owner died in 2020 or later (Roth IRAs where the death was before that can be longer, stretched out over the beneficiaries age). I can’t speak for JeffB, but maybe that is what he was thinking about. It can be a bit confusing.
And even though my link goes to a page that was updated in 2023, I noticed that it only references the SECURE Act of 2019, so I wouldn’t automatically assume that it has been updated to reflect the SECURE Act 2.0 of 2022. Here is a link to a page that has information about that Act. It can be confusing, and one should be careful and double check information since things change frequently.
Sorry for the highjack from the OP’s topic.