Under new IRS rules, the designated beneficiaries of your IRA will be determined on December 31 of the year following your death. This does not mean, though, that a new beneficiary can be named after your death.
Instead, during this post-death period the designated beneficiary can be changed to some other beneficiary or contingent beneficiary that you had named. Suppose you had named your spouse as the primary beneficiary and your children as contingent beneficiaries. Your spouse can disclaim the inherited IRA in favor of your children, if that’s a desirable tactic.
Disclaimers must be made in writing, within nine months of the IRA owner’s death. Then your children could extend distributions over their longer life expectancy. The new rules emphasize the importance of naming not only a beneficiary but a contingent beneficiary as well.
