Less Protection for Inherited IRAs
Submitted by Financial & Estate Advisors on October 29th, 2014A SCOTUS ruling raises eyebrows. This past summer, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that assets held within inherited IRAs by non-spousal beneficiaries do not legally constitute “retirement funds.” Therefore, those assets are not protected from creditors under federal bankruptcy statutes.
This opinion may have you scratching your head. “IRA” stands for Individual Retirement Arrangement, right? So how could IRA assets fail to qualify as retirement assets?