Inherited IRA and minimal earned income

[samlilred]

Good afternoon

I recently inherited an IRA as the beneficiary. My dad passed August 2024. I also was in a very bad car accident and earned below $10,000 of earned income. Is it advisable to take a distribution now in 2024 as my tax bracket will be much lower. Is there a penalty. Thank you 

[Bsch4477]

There is no penalty and it makes sense to make a withdrawal when you are in a low tax bracket. 

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

First, if your dad was past his required beginning date for RMDs and had not completed his 2024 RMD, you are required to complete that.  However you have until the end of 2025 to do that if you so desire.

Unless you are disabled, you'll need to completely distribute the inherited IRA by the end of 2034, so, unless the balance is rather small, it usually makes sense to spread the income over several years.

As for whether you should incur additional taxable income from the inherited IRA before the end of 2024, it  would generally make sense to take out at least enough to bring your total income up to the point where amounts beyond that would be taxable.  Unless the additional income from the distribution would produce some undesirable side effect based on AGI, it would make sense to take maximum advantage of the 0% tax bracket.  Depending on the tax bracket you expect to be in in 2025 through 2034, you might consider maxing out the 10% tax bracket (or even higher) in 2024.  Again, just be wary of any possible side effects due to increasing AGI.

If you choose to make a distribution from the inherited IRA before the end of 2024, make sure that the IRA custodian is able to process the request before the end of the year.