IRS Actuarial Tables: RMDs, Life Estates, and Section 7520

The IRS actuarial tables are two unrelated sets of life-expectancy tables that the tax code uses for very different jobs. One set turns your age into a divisor for required minimum distributions from retirement accounts. The other combines age with a monthly interest rate to calculate the present value of life estates, remainders, annuities, and other partial property interests for estate and gift tax purposes. Picking the wrong table, or the wrong factor within the right table, can mean a 25% penalty on a missed retirement withdrawal or a misvalued gift that the IRS unwinds on audit.

Two Separate Families of Tables

The retirement tables live in IRS Publication 590-B. They were last overhauled effective January 1, 2022, and the new distribution periods are slightly longer, which reduced annual RMDs modestly for most people.¹

The property-valuation tables are authorized by Section 7520 of the Internal Revenue Code. They pair mortality data with a discount rate to value interests that depend on how long someone is expected to live.² They almost never come up outside estate and gift planning.

The two systems share nothing but the underlying mortality data. Same age, different table, completely different number.

The RMD Tables and Which One You Use

There are three tables for required minimum distributions, and the divisor for a given age is different in each one. Choosing the right table is the whole ballgame.

The Uniform Lifetime Table is the default. You use it if you are unmarried, if your spouse is not your sole beneficiary, or if your spouse is your sole beneficiary but is not more than 10 years younger than you.
The Joint and Last Survivor Table applies only when your sole beneficiary is your spouse and that spouse is more than 10 years younger. Its divisors are larger, so the required withdrawals are smaller.
The Single Life Expectancy Table is used mainly by beneficiaries who inherited an account and qualify to take distributions over their own life expectancy.

Most account owners land on the Uniform Lifetime Table. A common error is reaching for the Joint and Last Survivor Table for a younger spouse who does not clear the 10-year gap. If your spouse is eight years younger and is the sole beneficiary, you are still on the Uniform Lifetime Table.³

Running the RMD Calculation

The formula has two inputs. Take your account balance on December 31 of the prior year, then divide by the life expectancy factor from the applicable table for your current age. The result is the minimum you must withdraw for the year.⁴

An example. You are 75, and your IRA held $400,000 at the end of last year. The Uniform Lifetime Table assigns a factor of 24.6 at age 75. Divide $400,000 by 24.6 and you get an RMD of about $16,260. You can always take more; you cannot take less without triggering the penalty. With multiple IRAs, you calculate each account’s RMD separately, but you can pull the combined total from any one of them or any combination.

Miss part of your RMD and the IRS imposes a 25% excise tax on the shortfall. The penalty drops to 10% if you correct the shortfall during the correction window, which generally runs through the end of the second taxable year after the year the tax was imposed.⁵ You report the penalty on Form 5329 with your federal return for the year of the missed distribution.⁴

Inherited Accounts and the Single Life Table

The SECURE Act reshaped how the actuarial tables reach inherited retirement accounts. Before 2020, most designated beneficiaries could stretch distributions over their own life expectancy using the Single Life Expectancy Table. That option now belongs to a narrow group the code calls eligible designated beneficiaries.

If you inherited an IRA or 401(k) and you are not in that group, you must empty the account within 10 years of the original owner’s death. Depending on the facts, you may owe annual RMDs during those years, calculated from the Single Life Expectancy Table, but the balance must reach zero by December 31 of the tenth year.⁶

Five categories of beneficiary can still take distributions over their own life expectancy: a surviving spouse; a minor child of the account owner (the 10-year clock starts when the child reaches the age of majority); a disabled individual under Section 72(m)(7); a chronically ill individual under Section 7702B(c)(2); and any person not more than 10 years younger than the deceased owner. Everyone else falls under the 10-year rule.⁶

For an eligible beneficiary using the Single Life Expectancy Table, the initial factor is set by the beneficiary’s age in the year after the owner’s death. That factor decreases by one each subsequent year, so required withdrawals grow gradually over time.³

Section 7520 Tables for Life Estates, Remainders, and Annuities

The Section 7520 tables answer a different question: what is a partial property interest worth today? Life estates (the right to use property or receive income for life), remainder interests (ownership that begins after a life estate ends), term-of-years interests, and annuities all get valued this way. The point is uniformity. Every taxpayer valuing the same type of interest arrives at the same number, without individual health assessments or subjective estimates.²

These valuations sit inside gift tax returns, estate tax returns, and income tax charitable deductions. They are the engine behind Charitable Remainder Trusts, Charitable Lead Trusts, and Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, because each of those vehicles splits property into a present interest and a future interest that must each be valued.⁷

The 7520 Rate

Unlike the RMD tables, which use only age, a Section 7520 valuation needs a second input. The Section 7520 rate equals 120% of the federal midterm rate for the month of the transfer, rounded to the nearest two-tenths of a percent, and the IRS publishes it monthly.² For early 2026, the rate has ranged from 4.6% to 4.8%.⁸

The rate is a discount rate, and its direction shapes the result. A higher 7520 rate shrinks the present value of a future interest, like a remainder, and increases the present value of a current interest, like an annuity. A lower rate does the reverse. Because the rate resets each month, the month you transfer property can meaningfully change the tax outcome.

For transfers that qualify for a charitable deduction, you can choose the 7520 rate from the month of the transfer or from either of the two preceding months. That prior-month election is the standard way to lock in a more favorable rate.⁹

When Standard Mortality Doesn’t Apply

The tables assume average health for a given age. When that assumption is far off, the Section 7520 rules bend. If the person whose life measures the interest has at least a 50% probability of dying within one year, the standard mortality factors cannot be used, and a special factor must be computed from the individual’s actual projected life expectancy.¹⁰

The regulation carries a safe harbor. If the person survives 18 months or longer after the transfer, they are presumed not to have been terminally ill at the time of the gift, and the IRS can overcome that presumption only with clear and convincing evidence.¹⁰

The terminal-illness override belongs to the Section 7520 side only. The RMD tables have no health exception. You use the standard factor for your age whatever your medical situation looks like.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions From Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7520 – Valuation Tables
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 401 – Qualified Pension, Profit-Sharing, and Stock Bonus Plans
7
Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Remainder Trusts
8
Internal Revenue Service. Section 7520 Interest Rates
9
eCFR. 26 CFR 20.7520-2 – Valuation of Charitable Interests
10
eCFR. General Actuarial Valuations