By Sarah Brenner, JD
Director of Retirement Education
June is PRIDE Month. June also marks the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage. When it comes to IRA rules, spouses have many advantages, and couples in same-sex marriages are no exception. From enhanced contribution rules to special rules for beneficiaries, marriage has its benefits when it comes to your retirement account.
Here are three IRA tax breaks available for married couples that same-sex couples should know about:
1. Enhanced Contribution Rules
If you are not working, you may think you are ineligible to make an IRA contribution. That might not be the case. If you are married, you may be able to contribute to your IRA based on your spouse’s taxable compensation for the year. An individual could make spousal IRA contributions in some years and regular IRA contributions in others.
To make a spousal contribution for 2026, you must be legally married on December 31, 2026 and file a joint federal income tax return for 2026. For same-sex couples, this would not include civil unions. If you are divorced or legally separated as of that date, neither is eligible for a spousal contribution, even if they were married earlier in the year.
2. Smaller RMDs for Some
When you reach age 73, you must start taking distributions annually, called required minimum distributions (RMDs). These are calculated by using life expectancy tables provided by the IRS. IRA spouse beneficiaries who are more than ten years younger than the IRA owner may use the Joint Life Expectancy Table. This results in smaller RMDs versus using the Uniform Lifetime Table, which is required to be used to calculate lifetime RMDs for all other IRA owners.
3. Special Rules for Spouse Beneficiaries
Only a spouse beneficiary can roll over or transfer an inherited IRA from her deceased spouse into her own IRA. This is known as a spousal rollover. There is no deadline for a spousal rollover. Once the spousal rollover is done, the funds are treated like any other IRA funds you own. There are no RMDs if you are not yet age 73. Non-spouse beneficiaries do not have this “spousal rollover” option.
Not every spouse beneficiary will want to do a spousal rollover. Sometimes, to avoid early distribution penalties, it can make more sense to keep an inherited IRA. Under the SECURE Act, most beneficiaries will need to empty the inherited IRA by December 31 of the tenth year following the year of death. However, eligible designated beneficiaries (EDBs) will still be able to take RMDs from the inherited IRA based on their own life expectancy. A spouse is one of those EDBs.
As a spouse beneficiary you can take advantage of a special rule unavailable to non-spouse beneficiaries. If you are the sole beneficiary, and if your spouse dies before their required beginning date (RBD), you can delay RMDs from the inherited IRA until the year your spouse would have attained age 73. That can mean a delay of many years before RMDs from the inherited IRA must begin.
Even when spouse beneficiaries are subject to RMDs, they receive a special break when calculating that amount. While non-spouse beneficiaries must use the Single Life Expectancy chart, spouse beneficiaries have the advantage of being able to use the Uniform Lifetime Table to calculate their life expectancy. This results in lower RMDs for spouse EDBs compared to non-spouse EDBs.
If you have technical questions you would like to have answered, be sure to submit them to mailbag@irahelp.com, to be answered on an upcoming Slott Report Mailbag, published every Thursday.