Question

When the surviving spouse is the sole beneficiary of the deceased spouse's Roth IRA, the surviving spouse should generally: A. Treat the account as the surviving spouse's own account, because that means no minimum withdrawals will be required as long as the surviving spouse lives. B. Immediately liquidate the account to avoid any threat of the 50% penalty for failure to comply with the required minimum withdrawal rules. C. Begin taking required minimum withdrawals by no later than December 31 st of the year of the deceased spouse's death. D. Ignore the account for required minimum withdrawal purposes, because the required minimum withdrawal rules do not apply to inherited Roth IRAs.

Answer 1

Here Option C is correct. Begin taking required minimum withdrawls by no later than 31st of december of the year of the deceased spouse's death this statement is true.

As in option A Treat the account as the surviving spouse's own account, because that means no minimum withdrawals will be required as long as the surviving spouse lives is not correct as no withdrawals is allowed only upto age of 70.5 year of surviving spouse and not as long as spouse lives.

Option B is also not correct as immediately liquidate the account will lead to no defferal of tax and have to pay the resulting tax because of complete drainage.

Option D is also wrong as  minimum withdrawal rules do apply to inherited Roth IRAs.