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The Secure Act was signed into law late last year, leaving retirement savers and retirees with little time to digest—and a lot of questions about—a host of new rules that are taking effect in 2020. Baker Boyer's Brian Bruggeman is quoted in this article in Barron's, who sought his expertise.

Here is an excerpt from this Q&A article:

I turned 70½ in 2019. How do the RMD changes affect me?

Barron’s fielded several variations of this question from readers who hit this milestone over the past year or will hit it this year. For them, little has changed.

The changes take effect in 2020, meaning that people who turn 70½ in 2020 can wait until they turn 72 to begin distributions.

But people who turned 70½ by Dec. 31, 2019, would still operate under the old rules. Put another way, someone who was born in the first half of 1949 has to follow the old rules regarding RMDs, while someone who was born in the second half of that year does not.

However, it is possible that the Internal Revenue Service may provide more guidance for the cohort that reached 70½ in 2019, so people are encouraged to consult with their tax planner to discuss their 2020 RMD plans, Fidelity Investments said. 

And no, to answer one Barron’s reader’s question: returning an unneeded 2019 RMD to an IRA is not an option.

“While it’s a bit of bad news for people in [that] situation, if you are over 70½ you can still take advantage of qualified charitable distributions,” said Brian Bruggeman, financial planning manager at Baker Boyer Bank in Walla Walla, Wash., referring to a strategy that allows taxfree distributions directly to charities. 

Read the full article in Barron's.