Take-Away: The Michigan State Bar Journal  devoted its November issue to an update of several estate planning topics, addressing: Asset Protection Trusts, Financial Powers of Attorney, the proposed Uniform Directed Trust Act, Exempt Property Allowances to surviving children, and Litigating the Presumption of Undue Influence. A few key points extracted from these articles are summarized […]

Take-Away: IRA rules are unduly complex. While some rules tend to be straightforward, other  rules defy imagination. A few of the overlooked IRA rules follow. Military Personnel Survivors: The death benefits that result from a military person’s death can be contributed to a Roth IRA or Coverdell Education Savings Account (CESA). This rule governs all […]

Caveat: This summary has absolutely nothing to do with estate planning or the administration of trusts. The topic is still timely, however, in light of today’s headlines. It also addresses one of the overlooked provisions of the 2017 Tax Act that have not gotten much attention unlike IRC 199A or the doubling of the standard […]

Take-Away: While over 31 states have adopted some variation of the Uniform Trust Code, including Michigan, by virtue of those variations, it is fair to say that there is very little uniformity when it comes to applying the Unifrom Trust Code. In particular, there is a divergence if trust beneficiaries can remove and replace existing […]

199A Regulations: One of her comments, among many, was that Treasury expects to have finalized the proposed IRC 199A Regulations (that were published in early August) by the end of this calendar year. Treasury understands that many pass-through entities, like S corporations and LLCs, are holding off converting to a C corporation (with its much […]

Take-Away: We regularly encourage clients to transfer title to their assets to a revocable trust in order to exploit the probate avoidance features of such a trust. Despite that advice, we may want to tread a bit more carefully when we tell clients to ‘fund their trust’ if that transfer could trigger the payment of […]

Take-Away: The distribution choices are pretty straight-forward after the SECURE Act for an adult, non-spouse, non-disabled/chronically ill beneficiary. The SECURE Act’s 10-year distribution rule will usually apply, but with one narrow exception. Background: If an adult who is not (i) a spouse of the IRA owner; (ii) chronically ill; (iii) disabled; or (iv) less than […]

Take-Away: When an IRA custodian calculates the required minimum distribution for a married individual, it is always good idea to confirm which Table was used by the custodian to calculate that required minimum distribution (RMD) for the year and to know some of the tricks and traps of taking an RMD. Background: It is important […]

Take-Away: The Michigan statute that revokes a provision in a Will or trust when a former spouse dies is fairly broad, which can lead to many assumptions, some of which might not always be accurate. In additional, there are limits to what governing documents are impacted by the Michigan revocation-on-divorce statute. Background: This topic has […]

Take-Away: Apparently Michigan does not (yet, at least) formally recognize the cause of action for a tortious interference with an inheritance, while about half the states do recognize this common law cause of action. Those states that refuse to recognize this tort action seem to believe that a probate judge has plenty of remedies available […]