SECURE Act: What to Do Now to Help Limit Heirs' Taxes Later

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, which passed in December 2019, has wide-ranging effects on retirement savings. Most of the act's provisions will have a positive impact on Americans' ability to save. One aspect, however, eliminates a commonly discussed planning tool: the ability to stretch distributions from retirement plan accounts and Inherited IRAs (commonly referred to as stretch IRAs) over a beneficiary's lifetime.

Going forward, the accounts of IRA owners and plan participants who died after Dec. 31, 2019, will generally need to be fully distributed to beneficiaries within 10 calendar years. Beneficiaries excluded from this rule include surviving spouses, disabled or chronically ill individuals, or those less than 10 years younger than the participant/owner. For young children of the