Take-Away: Many existing IRA beneficiary designation forms and see-through trusts will have to be revised in light of the SECURE Act’s 10-year distribution rule, and the special category that it creates for eligible designated beneficiaries who may continue to take stretch distributions from inherited IRAs and qualified plan accounts using their life expectancy. Example: I fielded […]

This is Part II of the promised summary with regard to when to name a Trust as the beneficiary of retirement plan accounts and IRAs. Earlier I provided a summary of a conduit trust. This is a summary of the see-through trust known as an accumulation trust. I will not repeat the earlier summary of […]

Several weeks ago a couple of individuals indicated  that they wanted to know more about distributions from retirement plans and IRAs to Trusts. Perhaps because it is that time of the year when many of our thoughts turn to taking required minimum distributions before the end of the calendar year or  because Congress is now […]

The Legislative Development and Drafting Committee of the Michigan Probate and Estate Planning Council is currently looking at a possible amendment to the Michigan Trust Code to permit ‘silent trusts’ or what I call a ‘hush trust.’ Many clients would prefer to not have the beneficiaries of Trusts that they create know about the Trust […]

We regularly work with high net worth clients. Perhaps some of those clients own aircraft. I read an article last night that alerted me to some technical requirements that a trustee must deal with when an aircraft is titled in a Trust. If a client transfers title to the aircraft to an existing Trust, or […]

Last month the Michigan Court of Appeals published a decision that came as something of a surprise, at least to an old-timer like me. Because the Court’s decision is published  it carries precedential weight and it must be followed by all probate courts in Michigan. The facts are pretty straightforward. The testator had a longstanding […]

A few months back I wrote a summary about an infamous New Jersey divorce case that was getting a lot of publicity, Phanenstihl where the divorce court ordered the trustee of a third-party support trust to pay to the beneficiary’s soon-to-be ex-wife 50% of the value of the trust corpus, in spite of the presence […]

Its October, the time of year when kids have fun getting lost in cornfield mazes. The same can be said when it comes to advisors who wander into the maze of the IRS’ required minimum distribution rules. Unfortunately those rules are not nearly as much ‘fun’ to navigate as a cornfield maze. Penalties: Let’s start […]

This past weekend I spent some time looking at a client’s proposed transfer of a real estate partnership interest into a Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT), year-end tax planning strategy. A contemplated gift to charity at this time of the year often takes on a priority  for income tax minimization purposes. Moreover, a gift to […]

One thing I learned over the years practicing law is that few clients ever understood life insurance, or more accurately the tax implications of borrowing against their life insurance policy and never repaying their loan. The Tax Court provided a not-so-surprising decision this past summer that is a helpful reminder that borrowing against the cash […]