Required Minimum Distributions

[Emcsq]

My spouse and I are 71 and approaching age 72 and will be required to take RMD's from our retirement accounts next year. I have both an individual IRA account set up from roll overs from previous 401-K accounts and a 401-K account from my current employer. My spouse has a 403-B account from her employer. I have no contributions directly to the individual IRA but continue to make regular contributions thru payroll deductions from my employer. My spouse make no current contributions to the 403-B account and has not for several years. We both currently work part time and along with our SS income the wages we earn allow us a comfortable living. We both plan on retiring next year when we turn 72. We do have substantial savings outside of the tax deferred structures. We know we must begin taking RMD's but we are not sure how that must be done with the multiple accounts. We file as joint taxpayers on our tax return. Can we aggregate all our accounts and take the RMD from just one account or must we take a RMD from each account separately?

We likely will not need the distribution for living expenses at least for a few years because of our non-tax deferred accounts.

[MaryK4]

An IRA owner must calculate the RMD separately for each IRA that he or she owns, but can withdraw the total amount from one or more of the IRAs. Similarly, a 403(b) contract owner must calculate the RMD separately for each 403(b) contract that he or she owns, but can take the total amount from one or more of the 403(b) contracts.

However, RMDs required from other types of retirement plans, such as 401(k) and 457(b) plans have to be taken separately from each of those plan accounts.  (You can rollover the 401(k)s to IRAs if you choose, this will give you more control over the RMD withdrawals.)

[Emcsq]

Thanks for the information. If I understand your comments correctly even though there are multiple accounts IRA's, 401K's, and 403B's must all calculate the RMD and then can only be aggregated among the same type of accounts by the same owner. Is that correct? Also, since it was not specifically addressed in your comments, married filing jointly taxpayers are not allowed to aggregate any of their separate accounts with their spouse to make the RMD from like accounts. Is this a correct interpretation?