Take-Away: It comes as no surprise that much of our client’s wealth these days is now tied up in IRAs (traditional, Roth, SEP and SIMPLE) as well as in 401(k) accounts. Control of these retirement assets, by default, passes to a conservator, or agent acting under a durable power of attorney, if the retirement asset […]

Take-Away: To confirm our short telephone conversation of this morning, the tax laws pertaining to IRAs and qualified plan benefits can be a bit confusing, but in general,  community property laws are ignored when it comes to distributions from IRAs that hold community property interests. Qualified Plans: Community property rules do not affect the income […]

Take-Away: The U.S. subjects its citizens to U.S. federal income tax and transfer tax on their worldwide income and assets.  But the U.S. distinguishes between a U.S. citizen and a non-U.S. citizen, resident or non-resident, for  U.S. taxation purposes. Not all resident non-U.S. citizens can escape U.S. federal income and transfer taxes on their worldwide […]

Take-Away: The Michigan Court of Appeals held this past June that a trust beneficiary who occupies a residence held in the name of the trustee can have the residence qualify for the Personal Residence Exemption (PRE) for Michigan real property tax assessment purposes. Source: Breakey v. Michigan Department of Treasury, Michigan Court of Appeals (June […]

Take-Away: I was asked to prepare a short ‘checklist’ to follow to determine if an individual can take advantage of the qualified charitable distribution. The qualified charitable distribution can satisfy the individual’s required minimum distribution (RMD) for the calendar year, which in turn reduces their federal income tax liability for the year. A qualified charitable […]

Take-Away: A helpful reminder is that state law determines a property interest, while the federal law determines how to tax those property interests. Words used in the Tax Code may have a much different meaning when those same words are used in a trust’s discretionary distribution provision.   Background: Considerable time is spent looking that […]

Take-Away: The law of undue influence is subject to a variety of shifting evidentiary rules that can at times be confusing. Sometimes there is a presumption of undue influence, and other times there is no presumption. Where it becomes confusing is when an individual is identified as having a confidential or fiduciary relationship with the […]

Take-Away:  Each year Nevada attorney Steve Oshins ‘ranks’ various state statutes that deal with trusts and their administration. Steve recently came out with his latest ‘rankings’ of state statutes that authorize the trustee’s decanting of an irrevocable trust’s assets to a new trust created by the trustee. When compared to Delaware’s decanting statute, Michigan’s two […]

Take-Away: Michigan adopted the Uniform Trust Code’s (UTC) terminology of a qualified trust beneficiary although the UTC uses the slightly different term qualified beneficiary. The significance is that a qualified trust beneficiary is entitled to receive information with regard to a trust’s administration, such as annual trustee accountings. In addition, a qualified trust beneficiary also […]

A couple of months ago I wrote about the possible use of spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs) as a way for a married couple to exploit the recent $5 million increase in their respective federal gift tax exemption amount, while still retaining access to the cash flow generated by those transferred assets. Yet another technique […]