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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Taxes => Topic started by: MudDuck on September 29, 2015, 01:07:33 PM

Title: Spousal IRA
Post by: MudDuck on September 29, 2015, 01:07:33 PM
I'm not even sure whether this is a tax question, really...

What I want to do is transfer some of the money from my traditional IRA to open another traditional IRA with my spouse's name and SSN. Can this be done in such a way that it's a qualified transfer/rollover/whatever the term is, rather than an early (taxable) withdrawal?
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: dandarc on September 29, 2015, 01:30:26 PM
First answer on google says only in the case of death or divorce:

http://finance.zacks.com/can-ira-transferred-spouse-spouse-5473.html (http://finance.zacks.com/can-ira-transferred-spouse-spouse-5473.html)

I'm curious why you want to do this?  You can open an IRA for your wife anytime for new contributions.

Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: MudDuck on September 29, 2015, 01:52:37 PM
I was hoping Google was wrong, as it so often is. We have very different birth years, so I thought it would be nice to have a more even spread between our accounts. The reason I wanted to take some from mine to open the account is that the contribution amount allowed per year is only $5500.
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: thingamabobs on September 29, 2015, 03:19:06 PM
It's 5500/year per person, so if you've already maxed out your account you can still contribute to the spousal.
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: MDM on September 29, 2015, 03:34:06 PM
Worried about RMDs from your account and the tax bite taken?  If so, have you considered some amount of Roth conversion each year to reduce that bite overall?
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: terran on September 29, 2015, 05:40:59 PM
Worried about RMDs from your account and the tax bite taken?  If so, have you considered some amount of Roth conversion each year to reduce that bite overall?

If this is the concern, then I also believe the RMD schedule is different when one spouse is significantly younger (at least 10 years I think).
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: dandarc on September 30, 2015, 09:25:48 AM
Worried about RMDs from your account and the tax bite taken?  If so, have you considered some amount of Roth conversion each year to reduce that bite overall?

If this is the concern, then I also believe the RMD schedule is different when one spouse is significantly younger (at least 10 years I think).
Here's the relevant table for spouses with significantly different ages.  http://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/Retail/Shared/PDFs/JointLifeExpectancyTable.pdf (http://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/Retail/Shared/PDFs/JointLifeExpectancyTable.pdf)
Title: Re: Spousal IRA
Post by: MudDuck on October 01, 2015, 06:49:25 AM
Thanks, everyone!