When the beneficiary of and IRA is the trust and the owner passes away can the legal title be changed to the trust?

I don't think so. There are still payout methods that a trust must abide by, the IRA cannot become part of that trust. How old is the deceased party- and who is the beneficiary of the trust?

The deceased is 74 and his 69 year old wife is the beneficiary of the trust.

If the trust is the beneficiary of the IRA, why would you not liquidate the IRA and distribute the proceeds to the Trust? The Trustee would then be responsible for investing the trust assets in accordance with the terms of the governing instrument or applicable law and distributing assets per the terms of the trust.

Only a spouse can assume their spouse's IRA. The trust is not a spouse, therefore does not qualify. Must be distributed in accordance with death dist. rules.

An IRA can be willed to anyone, or anything (in the from of this question...the trust) but typically the spouse must sign off if they are not the beneficiary. (I'm not sure if that's WA state law or federal frankly).

My IRA is willed to a nephew, but my spouse had to sign the document to acknowledge it before the nephew could be named the beneficiary. The trust situation would be no different.

I'm sorry I forgot to add to Karen's comment. The trust is the beneficiary. You would treat this no differently than any other IRA. The trust is another entity, the IRA needs to be liquidated and distributed to the Trust. From that point, the Trust assumes a different tax liability than the IRA owner would have. You can't just change the names and tax ID numbers.

Washington is a community property state. I'm sure the requirement is tied to that issue more than anything.

A longstanding IRS Revenue Procedure requires that an inherited IRA be retitled in the name of the new owner; e.g. "Doe Family Trust, beneficiary John Doe IRA." (Most banks would accomplish this via an internal transfer to a properly titled new account; the transfer is not subject to information reporting.) If you just cut a check payable to the trust you sabotage any tax planning they may have done.

An inherited IRA is subject to required minimum distribution (RMD) rules. (A spouse beneficiary has additional options, but they are not relevant here.) In this case, the decedent died after his required beginning date. So, if the bank follows the special rules for RMD calculations when a trust is involved (mostly about documentation) it may pay out over the surviving spouse's life expectancy, adjusted annually. If you have materials from an IRA seminar conducted in the last 2 years, they should cover the documentation requirements for trust beneficiaries that allow you to use the wife's age.