Navigating the Estate-bequest Terrain

If the interest passing to the charity is fully distributed before Sept. 30 of the year following the year of the donor’s death, it will be ignored for purposes of determining whether all beneficiaries are individuals.

But if the interests of the charity and the individual beneficiary constitute separate accounts — e.g., one half to charity, one half to the daughter — the daughter will be able to use her life expectancy to compute the minimum-required distributions from his separate account.