The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued guidance regarding clarification of the impact of a rollover from one Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) to another on the one-per-year limit on tax-free rollovers. This reflects a policy change following a January 2014 decision from the United States Tax Court.
The clarification relates to a change in the way the statutory one-per-year limit applies to rollovers between IRAs. The change in the application of the one-per-year limit reflects an interpretation by the U.S. Tax Court in a January 2014 decision applying the limit to preclude an individual from making more than one tax-free rollover in any one-year period. This applies even if the rollovers involve different IRAs. Before 2015, the one-per-year limit applies only on an IRA-by-IRA basis (that is, only to rollovers involving the same IRAs). Beginning in 2015, the limit will apply by aggregating all of an individual’s IRAs, effectively treating them as if they were one IRA for purposes of applying the limit.
To help taxpayers by allowing time for transition to the new interpretation, the IRS announced shortly after the January 2014 Tax Court decision that the new interpretation would not apply before January 1, 2015.
