Take-Away: In order to avoid the ‘shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’ adage, we find ourselves spending more time with closely held business owners, not only in structuring their estates to avoid probate and federal estate taxes, but to also prepare their families for the responsibilities of managing that inter-generational transfer of wealth.  It seems […]

Take-Away: We normally think of self-settled asset protection trusts, like the Michigan Qualified Distributions in Trust Act, as the only way for a trust to protect assets that are transferred to it by a beneficiary. But we need to remember that there are other ways in which an irrevocable trust can be used to protect […]

Take-Away: Clients and their advisors need to spend more time looking closely at beneficiary designations, contingent beneficiary designations that are signed by clients and used to transfer wealth on the client’s death. Arguably more wealth might be transferred on an individual’s death via beneficiary designations or nontestamentary contractual arrangements than pursuant to their will and […]

Take-Away: With the new limits on the income tax deductibility of state and local taxes, in particular real property taxes,  new strategies are now  beginning to emerge to deal with that income tax deduction limitation. One strategy is to shift the real property tax burden to an irrevocable trust, which has its own $10,000 annual […]

Take-Away:  You will recall that I recently wrote about the need for a fiduciary to be empowered to access the content of an individual’s digital assets. I mentioned this in a couple of presentations last week, after which I was asked by two attorneys if I had seen any sample language that would comply with […]

Take-Away: We all know how important it is to name a beneficiary of an IRA. If there is no designated beneficiary then the IRA custodial agreement will usually provide a default beneficiary. If the default beneficiary under the IRA custodial agreement is the decedent’s estate, the pay-out period in which to empty the IRA is […]

Take-Away: Grantor trusts for income tax purposes cause the grantor/settlor of the irrevocable trust to pay the income taxes on the trust’s income. But the trust’s assets will not be included in the grantor’s estate for estate tax calculation purposes. Some of the benefits of a grantor trust are: (i) a transfer of assets between […]

Take-Away: This summer the IRS denied a charitable remainder trust’s application to tax-exempt status. While that sounds like a bad outcome, what is important to remember is that a charitable remainder trust’s tax incentive feature, the income tax deduction with regard to the charitable remainder interest, falls under a different section of the Tax Code, […]

Take-Away: A father had his parental rights terminated by a court for abuse and neglect. The father then died.  A state Supreme Court held that the daughter to whom his parental rights had been terminated could not inherit from her deceased father’s estate, as their relationship was terminated, in a sense,  ‘both ways.’ Welcome to […]

Take-Away: A recent Tax Court decision was won by the taxpayer who surprisingly argued that she did not own an IRA, consequently she could neither be taxed on distributions nor assessed a 10% penalty. Facts: The owner used her IRA to make a $40,000 loan to her father in 2005, in exchange for a promissory […]