A self-employed middle-aged woman contributes annually to a Traditional IRA. She is unmarried, has two grown children, and has established a trust naming her two children as sole beneficiaries. The woman puts her assets in the trust and names the trust as beneficiary of the Traditional IRA. If she should die, what would happen to her IRA? (A) IRA assets would be divided evenly between her two children. (B) IRA assets would be included in the trust and established distributions from the trust to her children would be taxable as ordinary income. (C) IRA assets would be included in the trust, and her children would be allowed to rollover the distributions into their own IRAs on a tax-free basis. (D) The IRA would become the property of the Estate and would not be distributed to her children.

In this case, the trust is the direct beneficiary of the woman's IRA account. In case she dies, her IRA account's assets will pass to the trust. Then, the trust must make any distributions to the beneficiaries of the trust. in this case, the two children are the sole beneficiaries of the trust, and therefore, they will receive the distributions form the trust. This distributions should be made according to specific terms contained in the trust and will be taxed as ordinary income.

The advantage of designating a trust as a beneficiary of an IRA account is that the woman will decide how the trust will make the distributions.