Personal Investments • Inherited Retirement Accounts Help

My wife recently passed away and I am trying to determine the best way to handle her retirement accounts where I am the beneficiary. I've looked through quite a few past posts, but I don't think my exact situation is covered in all aspects. Below is a summary of the retirement accounts where I am the beneficiary. Neither of us have any tax-deductible traditional IRAs, mainly to allow annual tax-efficient backdoor Roths (which I believe would be good for me to continue). I am 44 and my wife was a year younger. I do not need any of the funds in these retirement accounts and therefore do to not intend to make any distributions/withdrawals prior to my retirement. As a spouse, I realize I can avoid any forced withdrawals as part of the Secure Act, which is good. I plan to keep all the same asset allocations according to our IP. My goal is to retire in my mid-50's.

Her Retirement Accounts
Roth IRA (> 5 yrs since first contribution/conversion)
2 401(k) plans (non-Roth)
2 403(b) plans (non-Roth)

His Current Applicable Retirement Accounts
Roth IRA (> 5 yrs since first contribution/conversion)
Current Employer 401k - non-Roth (Rollover contributions are allowed)

For the Roth IRA, I was thinking the best option is to do a spousal rollover of her Roth IRA to his Roth IRA. Am I missing another good option?

For the 401(k) and 403(b) accounts, I believe my options are:

1. Keep plans where they are as inherited 401k/403b
2. Rollover plans to an inherited IRA
3. Rollover plans to a personal IRA
4. Rollover plans into my current employer 401k

While doing #2 would allow me to push out RMDs by an extra year, I am leaning towards #4 to allow myself to continue doing tax-efficient backdoor Roths (due to continuing to not have any tax-deductible IRAs) until I retire. Given my goal is to retire early I would expect to use my taxable accounts or Roth IRA for income prior to 59.5. Am I missing any other advantages of the other options that would be more beneficial for my situation?

Thank you in advance for the help!

Statistics: Posted by budawgs04 — Wed Feb 21, 2024 10:43 pm — Replies 0 — Views 122

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