I feel left out this year because all of my clients stayed healthy and employed (if not already retired) and none of them took IRA distributions because of Covid problems.  Most of them avoided taking RMD's altogether.  

But I'm wondering if this is another case of thinking we have a tax on pieces of paper, rather than a tax on income.  What if you input that single 1099 on two worksheets, $45,000 and $55,000, and didn't mark the first one as Covid-related?  Certainly, if he had IRA accounts at two places, that would work.  Will the E-Filing Police disallow it because there is some schema that prohibits two 1099-R's from the same place?  They certainly have to allow two W-2s from the same employer; it happens regularly.