The IRS and the Treasury Department have issued Notice 2023-54, which defers the implementation of rules related to required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts in light of the SECURE 2.0 Act. These rules will apply no earlier than the 2024 distribution calendar year. 

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 includes a large number of changes in retirement planning, including moving up the age for RMDs to age 73, with the first RMD due to be taken by April 1 in the first year and by Dec. 31 in subsequent years, according to Accounting Today. The notice also offers relief to people born in 1951: "[A]n IRA owner who was born in 1951 will have a required beginning date of April 1, 2025, rather than April 1, 2024, (and the first distribution made to that IRA owner that will be treated as an RMD will be a distribution made for 2024, rather than 2023)."

The notice states that it “provides transition relief for plan administrators, payors, plan participants, IRA owners, and beneficiaries in connection with the change in the required beginning date for [RMDs] under § 401(a)(9) of the Internal Revenue Code pursuant to § 107 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0 Act), enacted on December 29, 2022."

Section 107 of the SECURE 2.0 Act amended the Tax Code to change the required beginning date applicable to Section 401(a) plans and other eligible retirement plans, including IRAs.

"In Notice 2022-53, the IRS stipulated that the minimum distribution rules for defined contribution plan balances (including IRAs) inherited from a beneficiary who had passed away after their required beginning date—as outlined in the proposed regulations under the SECURE Act—would not take effect until 2023 at the earliest," Ed Zollars, owner of Thomas Zollars & Lynch, wrote on the Current Federal Tax Developments blog. "However, with the release of [this latest notice], the IRS has further delayed the implementation of these rules by at least one year, meaning they will not be applicable until 2024 at the earliest."

The SECURE 2.0 Act changed the required start date for these taxpayers to April 1 of the year after the one in which they turn 73, so the 2023 payments became eligible rollover distributions. Accounting Today reported. Taxpayers might not have known about this change until after the 60-day rollover period had expired. Notice 2023-54 offers an option to roll over those payments through Sept. 30 of this year.