I have been a tax preparer for 8 years and an Enrolled Agent for 4 years. Your full retirement age for Social Security if 66 years and 4 months if you were born in 1956.
Need to know the age of the sibling on the date of death and what type of income was inherited.
If your sibling was under 70.5 and you inherited a traditional IRA, you can take the RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) in a lump sum or over 5 years.
If the sibling was over 70.5 and you inherited a traditional IRA, you can take the RMD either using your sibling’s age or your age.
If the income was stocks, you can use stepped up basis to decrease the gain. Basis is the Fair Market Value (FMV) at date of death but the acquisition date is still the date that your sibling bought the stock. This gives you a lower gain and long term capital gains tax treatment.
If the income was in a ROTH IRA and the account was set up for at least 5 years before the siblings death, the income will not be taxable.
If the income was savings or checking (not in a deferred compensation plan such as a traditional IRA, 401k, 403b, 457, etc), it will not be taxable.
This is very good information, and will help me to form certain guidelines of expectation. Some details about the estate, I will not be able to answer for a while. The estate is being handled by my older sister. She and I are not really getting along right now, unrelated to this , so I will wait until the full amount has been paid out before I ask for more specifics.