I haven't had any direct experience with doing so. Unfortunately, the reference page on Natalie Choate's web site (<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
https://www.ataxplan.com/">https://www.ataxplan.com/</a>) discussing this issue no longer seems to exist, so I can't provide a link. But the IRS has issued many PLRs related to this, indicating the IRS's general position that estates are permitted to distribute the inherited IRA by splitting to a different inherited IRA account for each of the estate beneficiaries. Doing so does not change the RMD requirement established by the fact that the estate inherited the IRA, and, since the income to the estate will be distributed to the estate beneficiaries for taxation to the estate beneficiaries anyway, so doing so does not prejudice the government; the IRS still gets the same tax income. It simply means that the estate need not remain open to be the middleman.
