April 1st Important Deadline For Clients With First-Time Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Obligations

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Written by William Byrnes | Posted in Required Minimum Distributions

While April 15 is a well-known and understood deadline, most clients don’t associate April 1 with any important tax-related deadlines—but April 1 is, in fact, one of the most important deadlines for clients who turned 70 1/2 years old in the previous year. For those clients who maintain traditional retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s and IRAs, April 1 is the date by which they must take their first required minimum distribution (RMD) from the account if they turned 701/2 in the previous year.

For example, a client who turned 701/2 in 2018 must take their first RMD by April 1, 2019. This April 1 deadline is a special rule that applies only to first-time RMDs–a client’s 2019 RMD will be due by December 31, 2019. This means that clients who choose to wait until the April 1 deadline will be required to take two RMDs in 2019. For each subsequent year, the generally applicable December 31 deadline is the relevant date for RMDs. For more information on lifetime RMD requirements, visit Tax Facts Online. Read More

Written By William Byrnes

William Byrnes

William H. Byrnes has achieved authoritative prominence with more than 20 books, treatise chapters and book supplements, 1,000 media articles, and the monthly subscriber Tax Facts Intelligence. Titles include: Lexis® Guide to FATCA Compliance, Foreign Tax and Trade Briefs, Practical Guide to U.S. Transfer Pricing, and Money Laundering, Asset Forfeiture; Recovery, and Compliance (a Global Guide). He is a principal author of the Tax Facts series. He was a Senior Manager, then Associate Director of international tax for Coopers and Lybrand, and practiced in Southern Africa, Western Europe, South East Asia, the Indian sub-continent, and the Caribbean. He has been commissioned by a number of governments on tax policy. Obtained the title of tenured law professor in 2005 at St. Thomas in Miami, and in 2008 the level of Associate Dean at Thomas Jefferson. William Byrnes pioneered online legal education in 1995, thereafter creating the first online LL.M. offered by an ABA accredited law school (International Taxation and Financial Services graduate program).