Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

No. IRA accounts pass according to the written contract with the custodian of the IRA. These funds do not enter the probate estate and are not available to the Executor.

No. And you do not want the executor to have access to the funds either. The beneficiary can do what he or she wants with the money, subject to taxation issues.

There are special rules for IRAs. Its not always a good idea to have one when you die, but if that happens, the beneficiary can get the funds and add it (called rollover) into his or her own IRA and stretch out or delay the payment of taxes.

If your mother set up a trust for example and made her trust the beneficiary, the trust does not get the same stretch out abilities and would have to pay the taxes owed.

I don't know how much money your mother has in an IRA or whether she is over age 59 1/2. It may make sense for her to sit down with a fee-only financial planner and/or estate planning attorney. She needs to come up with a solid estate plan that will minimize taxes, give her income for life and ease the transfer of assets to her beneficiaries, not the government, when she dies. Your mother may want to start taking distributions from her IRA and paying tax on that and converting it into something else - maybe an annuity, Roth or something else.