H.R. 748, The “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020” waived the Required Minimum Distributions that would have previously been required for calendar year 2020. In other words, RMDs which are based on 12/31/2019 plan balances and are normally required to be made by 12/31/2020 (or by 4/1/2021 for those attaining age 72 in 2020) do not have to be made.
Generally, the 2020 waiver covers life-time Required Minimum Distributions to plan owners and after-death distributions to beneficiaries. There are also special provisions for those taking under the five year rule when that five year period includes 2020 (generally covering distributions from plans with no designated beneficiary where the owner died in the years 2015 through 2020 before the Required Beginning Date)–that five year period becomes a six year period. In these cases where the five year rule is expanded to six years, it will be shown as such by the program regardless of whether the 2020 Waiver of RMDs input is set to “Yes” or “No”.
The program, by default, will set the input to waive RMDS for 2020. If, you would like to run the program as if the rules applied prior to the passage of the CARES Act, then under the “Options” menu, select the 2020 Waiver of RMDs item. When the input on this screen is set to “Yes”, calculated Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for 2020 will be set to zero. If this input is set to “No” the program will calculate RMDs as they would have been prior to the passage of the 2020 waiver of RMDs. However, even if you enter “No” for 2020 Waiver of RMDs input, it will be set to “Yes” the next time you load the program (except for saved files).
