This year my wife's monthly pension payment is being treated like an IRA distribution. How do I change that?

[TomNTara]

She's been receiving payments from OPM for years and I've been entering them without trouble but this year the program is asking about RMD. She's over 72 but this is a pension payment.

[JohnB5677]

This is not a problem.  Continue to include the 1099-R as you always did.  In the interview it will ask if you get regular monthly payment.  This is the trigger that will keep the payments consistent with past years.

[SteamTrain]

...and Yes, whatever she received as a total of pension payments, after age 72 now.....is considered an RMD.  Even from a pension you/she has no control over the payment amounts.

[Opus 17]

An RMD is a required amount you must withdraw to spend in your lifetime, so that you can't just keep the tax-protected account, never use it, and pass it to your children.  You must spend at least some of it in your lifetime.  The amount is calculated from the account balance and your remaining life expectancy.

Because a traditional pension is already calculated based on your life expectancy, and ends when you die (or when your spouse dies if you have a survivorship benefit), it automatically meets any requirement to withdraw the pension over your lifetime.  So you can just answer "yes" and move on, any time you are asked about an RMD with respect to a traditional pension. 

[CoraB43]

I am still confused because my husband was 79 last year, and his pension has never before been treated as an IRA in the income summary at the end of entering income, always before it was listed as pension.  I am concerned whether it will show correctly on our state tax where it is exempt as pension, NOT as IRA.

[FangxiaL]

Make sure you did not accidentally check the box that says IRA/SIMPLE/SEP when you were entering the 1099-R form.

@CoraB43

[dmertz]

Pensions are subject to the same RMD requirements as IRAs.  The pension distributions are all RMD and entirely satisfy the RMD requirements of the pension.

[macuser_22]

The only difference between reporting a pension and an IRA is IRA's go on the 1040 line 41 and 4b while pensions go on line 5a and 5b (the same as other employer retirement plans).