Stay on Top of RMD Rule Changes for 2020
Two recently enacted laws, the Setting Every Community up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, included provisions that affected required minimum distributions (RMDs) from workplace retirement plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs).*
The SECURE Act, passed in late 2019, increased the starting age from 70½ to 72 as of Jan. 1, 2020. Then, in March of this year, the CARES Act waived RMDs altogether for the 2020 calendar year. This waiver even includes beneficiaries with inherited accounts, as well as people who turned 70½ in 2019 but waited to take their first distribution until 2020.
Considering the effects of both laws, if you turned age 70½ by the end of 2019, you should resume taking RMDs in 2021. (You won’t have to take a “double” RMD in 2021, just the
