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If, however, you leave this retirement account to anyone other than your spouse—your children, your mother, or your trust—those beneficiaries have got to wipe the account clean within five years. Even if they do not need the money, they have got to take it out and pay taxes on it within that five-year period. (There are a few, rare exceptions to this, but the recommendation still holds true.) If your trust document says that everything you have is to go to your spouse, so you therefore leave the trust as your primary beneficiary on your retirement accounts, your wife will also have to wipe this account clean within five years; she will not have the right to take it over as she did when she personally was named the beneficiary. This is a very important point for married couples to be aware of—if you have a trust already set up and you have retirement accounts, make sure that if you are married, your primary beneficiary is your spouse and not the trust. The trust can be the secondary beneficiary, the one that gets everything if the primary beneficiary has died.