The following blog post conveys some information poorly and contains some errors:
https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/investments/taxes-101-how-do-inherited-iras-work-94027/
The default beneficiary of an IRA is determined by the terms of the IRA agreement. While most IRA agreements specify that the decedent's estate is the default beneficiary, that does not have to be the case.
The paragraph discussing eligible designated beneficiaries is poorly written. Eligible Designated Beneficiaries comprise a subset of designated beneficiaries while the poor wording seems to suggest that EDBs are not designated beneficiaries.
Designated beneficiaries, EDBs or not, do not use the 5-year rule. The 5-year rule only applies to beneficiaries that are not an individual such as an estate, a trust that is not qualified for look-through or a charity.
"The SECURE Act offers more options for people who inherit retirement accounts, including nonspouses." Not really. It offers different options, not more options, and in some cases, fewer options.
"Under the SECURE Act, more individuals can qualify as an eligible designated beneficiary when inheriting an IRA."
Not really. In the past, all designated beneficiaries were effectively EDBs because no designated beneficiary was subject to a 10-year rule.
While earlier paragraphs correctly indicate that EDBs can only opt into the 10-year rule if the decedent died before RBD, a later paragraph incorrectly implies that any EDB can opt into the 10-year rule.
With respect to an inherited Roth IRA, the blog post fails to mention that the decedent is deemed to have died before their RBD regardless of their age at death and instead implies that RBD is determined by the year the participant reached age 73 for both traditional and Roth IRAs.
DanaB27, you seem to be the most knowledgeable of the TurboTax Experts regarding retirement issues, so maybe you could pass my comments along to the TurboTaxBlogTeam or whoever else might be interested.
