Investors & landlords

Unfortunately, the custodian rep can give you incorrect information, and in this case, they did.

 

your best bet is to make the IRA grow as long as possible.

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OTHERWISE,

when you are subject to the 10-year liquidation rule for newly inherited IRAs,
to spread the tax impact most evenly, (and, satisfy the requirement to liquidate all within the specified time)
your divisor should be :   10 - N where N is the number of annual distributions you already took.

In other words, with five years to go, you want to take out one fifth of the IRA  (not 10% of the IRA).