IRA

[Christian]

A long time client passed on last year leaving an IRA account with a sizable balance. instead of leaving it to her progeny she made it payable into her estate with the balance after payment of all bills divided equally among her three children. Somewhere in the dim past I recall reading or was told that an IRA left in this manner was treated as totally distributed into her estate by the Service and subject to tax on the fiduciary return at estate rates. Is this the case or is the balance left distributed to the heirs with tax paid by them?