Tool · IRC §4974
Missed RMD Excise-Tax Estimator
Compare excise-tax scenarios for a confirmed shortfall in a required minimum distribution (RMD). This estimator checks entered dates, not whether you owed an RMD or what your final tax return should report. A waiver request is not IRS approval.
Correction · October 2, 2026: corrected timing, waiver and filing guidance; removed unsupported tax and outcome assurances. Corrections and updates.
Scope: one confirmed shortfall for one account or plan and one missed deadline, for a calendar-year individual with an excise-tax year from 2022 through 2026. Determine the required amount, aggregation rules, beneficiary treatment and any special relief first. Cross-account corrections, partial corrections, mixed-rate amounts, filings before the excise-tax year ends, fiscal-year filers, trusts, estates, disputed deadlines and individualized filing decisions are not modeled.
The page has no income-tax estimate, payment instruction or waiver-approval prediction. It does not fill a tax form or generate a reasonable-error letter. Amounts are rounded to cents for illustration, not tax-return rounding.
Calculator inputs are processed by this page without a save or submit feature. Site consent storage and optional analytics are separate; see the privacy policy. This is not a promise of zero browser storage or network activity.
Confirmed shortfall and deadline
Required amount minus qualifying amounts received by that deadline. Do not subtract a later make-up payment. The $1 billion input ceiling is a software limit, not a tax-law limit.
Use the legally applicable deadline, not the discovery date. A first RMD due April 1 can put the excise tax in a later year than the RMD's distribution calendar year.
Correction and return
For the 10% rate, both events must occur during the applicable correction window. A planned payment or filing is not a completed event.
IRS events concerning this tax
Enter all applicable events. An ordinary reminder letter is not necessarily a notice of deficiency. Confirm the record if uncertain.
Before any applicable relief or waiver. Not a final liability determination.
Conditional 10% scenario
Tax-year-specific window
The calendar endpoint is not an extension of the original RMD deadline, a universal filing due date or a statute-of-limitations determination.
What the estimator does — and does not decide
Enter a verified shortfall and its actual missed deadline. For a calendar-year individual, the excise-tax year contains the last day by which the distribution had to be taken. That is not always the year commonly used to label the RMD. For example, a first RMD for 2025 that was legally due April 1, 2026 belongs to excise-tax year 2026 if that deadline is missed. Verify your own required beginning date; not every beneficiary receives an April 1 deferral.
This page does not calculate life-expectancy factors, determine who owes an RMD, aggregate accounts or decide special relief. An original Roth IRA owner has no lifetime RMD, but inherited Roth IRAs can have distribution obligations. Ordinary direct non-EDB inherited Roth ten-year treatment generally has no annual RMDs in years 1–9; continuing life-expectancy payments and successor cases are different. Confirm the applicable rule before entering a shortfall. See Publication 590-B and TD 10001.
Special relief can change whether a missed distribution produces excise tax. For example, Notice 2024-35 provided relief for specified 2024 beneficiary distributions, not every missed RMD. The estimator does not adjudicate such relief, deadline postponements, prior assessments, partial corrections or mixed-rate cases. Do not infer that an old year is closed to assessment.
Rates, the correction window and a waiver are separate
For calendar-year individuals, the base rate was 50% for 2022. SECURE 2.0 §302 changed it to 25% for 2023 onward, with a conditional 10% rate. It applies to the shortfall, not the full account balance. This estimator supports only deadline years 2022–2026. See IRC §4974(a), (e) and the amendment's effective-date note.
For the reduction in the single-account case modeled here, the shortfall must be received from that plan/account and a return reflecting the tax must be submitted during the window. Under §4974(e)(2), the window starts when the tax is imposed and ends on the earliest of the deficiency notice's mailing date, the assessment date, or the last day of the second taxable year after the excise-tax year. For a calendar-year 2025 excise tax, that last endpoint is December 31, 2027; an earlier IRS event can shorten it. Unknown IRS-event status stays unknown here. Same-day correction/filing and notice/assessment cases are referred for timing review rather than assigned a reduced-rate result.
Permitted aggregation is a separate case: final §54.4974-1(a)(2)(iv), applicable for tax years beginning in 2025 onward, permits a corrective distribution from another eligible plan/account when permitted aggregation could have satisfied the original RMD. This estimator does not determine that eligibility or model cross-account corrections.
The IRS may separately waive all or part of the tax for reasonable error when reasonable remedial steps are being taken. There is no success percentage or guaranteed result. Selecting the waiver reference does not set the estimator to zero. A waiver request, IRS approval and the applicable non-waiver rate are different facts. Follow the instructions for any tax reported while requesting relief; this page does not direct you to pay zero or to wait for a decision before meeting filing/payment obligations.
Illustration: $5,000 shortfall × 25% = $1,250.
If the 10% conditions apply: $5,000 × 10% = $500.
For a 2022 calendar-year shortfall: $5,000 × 50% = $2,500.
Those examples exclude waiver, interest, other penalties and income tax. A late make-up payment does not retroactively become a timely original distribution. Determine separately which year's distribution and which year's excise-tax return are involved.
Form 5329: use the year that actually applies
Use the excise-tax year's form and instructions, not automatically the newest edition or the year you discovered the problem. Filing Form 5329 separately, with a return, or with an amended return depends on prior filings and other changes; an amended Form 1040 is not universally required. See the IRS instructions, “When and Where To File” and “Prior tax years”.
| Tax year | Printed form layout | Waiver reference and sources |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 52: required amount; 53: timely distributions; 54: shortfall; 55: 50% tax. | The instructions place “RC” and the requested shortfall beside 54. Form · Instructions, Part IX. |
| 2023 | 52/53: required/timely amounts; 54: shortfall; 55: tax, with a 10% checkbox and a worksheet for multiple plans. | The instructions place the RC shortfall beside 54. Form · Instructions, Part IX. |
| 2024–2025 | 52a/b and 53a/b separate required/timely amounts; the printed 54a/b lines calculate 10%/25% tax; 55 totals them. | The instructions put the RC request beside 54a/b, not 55. 2024 form · 2024 instructions · 2025 form · 2025 instructions. |
| 2026 | No 2026 form layout is assumed by this page. The verified current final edition at this check was 2025. | Use the final 2026 edition when available through IRS Form 5329 information; do not automatically reuse 2025 line numbers. |
Waiver presentation requires care: the 2024–2025 instructions describe an RC shortfall beside lines 54a/b, while those printed form lines perform tax calculations. This estimator does not populate those lines, compute an adjusted waiver entry or resolve how to present your particular request. Reconcile the form and instructions with the IRS or a qualified preparer rather than inserting the scenario amount into a guessed box.
Keep evidence of the original requirement, timely distributions, corrective receipts, relevant IRS notices, filing dates and the facts supporting any reasonable-error request. A computer-generated statement cannot establish those facts; this tool does not invent them or produce a filing-ready waiver letter.
Income tax is a different question
A qualified inherited Roth IRA distribution is excluded from federal gross income. Before the owner's five-tax-year qualification period is complete, earnings can be taxable; basis and distribution ordering matter. Traditional IRA basis can also affect taxability. Therefore this estimator does not multiply a make-up payment by a marginal rate or describe it as invariably ordinary income. See Publication 590-B, chapters 1–2.
The excise tax, a waiver request and the reporting of the actual distribution are separate. A zero illustrated shortfall does not mean no form is required for another issue. A Form 1099-R distribution code alone does not establish an RMD error. Check account records and the applicable form instructions.
Corrections and updates
Correction · October 2, 2026. Replaced an incomplete two-year reduction rule with tax-year-specific timing that includes deficiency notices, assessments and return submission. Corrected Form 5329 references and removed unsupported waiver-success statistics, automatic zero-tax outcomes for waiver requests, unconditional income tax on inherited Roth distributions, and promises of features the tool did not provide. Results are now bounded excise-tax scenarios for confirmed facts, with explicit unknowns and limits. Public correction record.