In January 2020, the SECURE Act went into effect, significantly changing the rules for retirement accounts. In January 2022, we got SECURE 2.0. Then, later in 2022, we got “proposed regulations” from the IRS contradicting parts of the original SECURE Act. More than four years after the original legislation, in July 2024, we got the final regulations clarifying the new rules.
The combination of the SECURE Act, SECURE 2.0 and the final regulations released in July creates a nearly impossible maze to navigate when it comes to distributions from inherited accounts. Before we look at these insanely complicated rules, we must define a few things.
