Missives

The proposed budget authority for 2025 allocates $1.011.64 billion to net interest paid on the federal deficit. For comparison purposes, the amount allocated to Medicare is $952.24 billion, or for National Defense, $933.48 billion. If high inflation reappears, or sovereign nations start selling their U.S. Treasury bonds, we can expect the amount of interest paid on the federal deficit to increase even more.

The civil penalty for failing to file beneficial owner information with FinCEN is $591 per day. If there is a willful violation of the beneficial ownership information reporting obligation, that individual may also be subject to criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. With these threats hanging over the heads of a reporting company and a beneficial owner, one would think that FinCEN would be much more helpful in clarifying its definition of a beneficial owner.

The rules that pertain to an HRA are different from a health savings account (HSA), which permit the payment of the HSA account balance after the account owner’s death, but the account balance must be paid within one year of the HSA-owner’s death, and that distribution will be taxable as ordinary income, except that a HSA can be inherited and continue to be used by the HSA- owner’s surviving spouse.

A NIMCRUT may be a good way to spread capital gain income over an extended period of time, as opposed to paying capital gains immediately after a liquidity event. But there are some IRS created impediments that may have to be worked around.

Giving a trustee the authority to convert an income-only trust to a unitrust provides much greater flexibility to the trustee in its efficient administration of the trust. Not every trust will be converted to a unitrust, depending on the trust’s terms and assets, but it will provide the trustee with one more tool to consider in addressing the needs of all trust beneficiaries.

While some in Congress currently wring their hands that somehow donor advised funds provide a big tax loophole for donors, or in some manner donor advised funds are abused by donors, these statistics demonstrate the donor advised funds have been broadly embraced by Americans as one more way to support thousands of charitable organizations across the country.

An IRA custodial agreement and beneficiary designation will be interpreted according to the laws of the state where the IRA custodian is located, not the state of the IRA owner’s residence.

Qualifying a trust as a see-through trust just got a bit easier with the SECURE Act’s Final Regulations.

A married couple who runs a successful business with no other employees can contribute a substantial amount of deductible contributions, each year, to a solo 401(k) plan. And a small self-employed business owner with no employees should consider adopting a solo 401(k) plan before April 15, 2025.