Take-Away: An agent who acts under a durable power of attorney may be exposed to claims of self-dealing if the agent takes actions that benefit the agent or the agent’s family members. Less obvious is that the agent’s confidential relationship with their principal can expose the agent to claims of undue influence over his/her principal […]

Take-Away: While a federal gift tax return appears fairly simple in form to complete, the rules that must be followed to complete that Form 709 are far from simple. A complex rules follow which indicate the complexity associated with completing the ‘simple’ federal gift tax Form 709. Split-gifts:  Married taxpayers who are U.S. citizens or […]

Take-Away: The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld a state statute that retroactively revoked the life insurance beneficiary designation where the insured’s former spouse was the named primary beneficiary. The statute was challenged by a former spouse who claimed that the statute violated the Constitution’s Contracts Clause, which deprived her of her right to receive the […]

Take-Away:  One of the challenges in directing an IRA to be paid to an irrevocable trust on the IRA owner’s death is how to identify the oldest beneficiary of the trust whose life expectancy governs the required minimum distributions the trustee must take from the decedent’s IRA. Even more of a challenge is if there […]

Take-Away:  Sometimes how an heir receives his or her inheritance dictates if he or she will be able to keep that inheritance if creditors are circling. The Bankruptcy Code provide a ‘bright-line’ approach to what is considered property included in the heir’s bankruptcy estate. The ‘bright-line?’ Avoid passing the decedent’s assets to an heir by […]

Take-Away: Sometimes we forget why the use of a revocable grantor trust is a critical part of an estate plan. Several practical, financial and creditor advantages exist to the use of a revocable Trust over a Will went the transfer of wealth occurs on an individual’s death.   Background: A draft Will crossed my desk […]

Take-Away: As we counsel clients about estate planning over the next few years, we do so with the expectation that interest rates will continue to rise. Some conventional estate planning strategies like qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), grantor retained income trusts (GRITs) and charitable remainder annuity trusts (CRATs) perform well as interest rates continue to […]

Take-Away: While a trust should always contain a material purpose clause to guide the trustee, and possibly guide a probate judge as well, as to the settlor’s intent in establishing a trust, if the trust instrument confers discretion on the trustee with regard to distributions, the settlor should also supplement the trust instrument with non-binding […]

Take-Away: Yet another state court has found unconstitutional its state income taxing regime that imposes a state income tax on income accumulated in an irrevocable trust, the claimed authority to impose the tax based solely upon the residence of the trust settlor. Fielding v Commissioner of Revenue (MN July 18, 2018.) Summary: On July 18 […]

Take-Away: While we are less concerned about federal estate tax liability these days, a working knowledge of the Tax Code’s ‘string provisions’ is critically important when individuals decide to make aggressive use of today’s large tax-free gifting opportunities presented by the 2017 tax law. That said, the IRS seems to be making headway in re-asserting […]