Discharge of indebtedness income often comes as a surprise to the debtor. It comes as an even bigger surprise to a single member LLC owner who was never obligated to repay the loan that was subsequently discharged.

Funding a stock or partnership buy-sell agreement with life insurance on the life of an owner may cause unexpected federal estate tax liability for a deceased owner’s estate.

Once required minimum distributions are ‘turned on’ they cannot be later ‘turned off’ by a successor beneficiary of a retirement account.

Trusts sometimes protect assets from being lost in the beneficiary’s divorce, other times the trust does not work so well as an asset protection device.

There is now a three year statute of limitations associated with the failure to take a required minimum distribution (RMD) from a retirement account.

Trusts for disabled or chronically ill beneficiaries can exploit the stretch distribution rules for retirement benefits made payable to the trust.

Often there is the temptation to rent one’s home for a short period of time, especially when there is a strong demand for housing for short period of time. The tax law favors such short-term rentals of a home, but as always there are limits to this opportunity.

Disabled or chronically ill designated beneficiaries of retirement accounts have the opportunity to stretch required minimum distributions over their lifetimes (using the Single Life Table). Qualifying as an eligible designated beneficiary who is either disabled or chronically ill in order to be able to stretch those distributions is difficult.

Take-Away: Federal Deposit Insurance (FDIC) insurance coverage for deposit accounts held by a trust depend on the number of identifiable, primary, trust beneficiaries. The rule is also changing in 2024.

While the IRS has provided relief in two Notices to some beneficiaries who have inherited retirement accounts in the past three years, thus relieving them of the obligation to take annual required minimum distributions (RMDs), deferring an RMD may not be a wise move from an overall income tax-savings perspective.