ML force closed my wife's traditional and Roth IRAs. They sent us two checks made out in my wife's name. They withheld about $22k in taxes. And they are refusing to code this as a direct distribution because "the accounts are close."
I would like to figure out a way to avoid tax consequences for Merrill's mistake. Unfortunately, since it is two IRAs, if I do an indirect rollover I think I will fall afoul of the one indirect rollover per year rule (since this is two IRAs). I went to Fidelity and tried to deposit the checks, and they said they could only take one. On the other hand, a Merrill advisor (over the phone) said that we could open two new accounts, write two separate checks, and this would only count as one indirect rollover. He claimed that "several colleagues" and his supervisor confirmed this.
Does anyone have any advice or experience with this? (Thanks in advance!)