Missives

: I was asked to share my thoughts on the impact of the election of Mr. Trump as President on the future of estate planning. Frankly, I’m not smart enough to form any opinions, but I confess that I do read lots of articles where others have no problem coming up with their own thoughts and predictions (for which they are never held accountable!) From that reading I have formed a couple of conclusions, none of which will come as a surprise.

There were some conflicting stories coming out of Washington DC last week regarding what to expect when the ‘new’ Congress convenes early next year to work on the tax legislation in its first 100 days.

A Health and Education Exclusion Trust ( or, HEET) is one way to fund the education expenses and other medical expenses of multiple generations of trust beneficiaries without ‘wasting’ the settlor’s generation skipping transfer tax (GSTT) exemption.

There is no clear answer if an individual going through a divorce also holds an interest in an irrevocable trust whether the divorce court will take that interest into account when fashioning an equitable distribution of the marital estate, or in making a spousal support award. States have very different laws when it comes to how an irrevocable trust is treated in a divorce. Using a prenuptial agreement to support the beneficial interest in the trust may be useful to protect the beneficiary’s interest.

If a trust is classified as a foreign trust, it might be taxed either to its settlor or beneficiary as a grantor trust for income tax reporting purposes.

We can expect the ‘new’ Congress to begin to immediately take up the extension of the 2017 Tax Act and many of its provisions when it convenes early next month. Another piece of legislation that is expected to be visited by Congress early in 2025 is the proposed ACE Act, which has a fair amount of bipartisan support. The Accelerate Charitable Efforts Act, or ACE Act, focuses on eliminating perceived abuses of donor advised funds (DAFs.)

The SECURE 2.0 Act was passed almost two years ago. Some of its new provisions only become effective starting in 2025.

If an individual owns more than one IRA, they might want to consolidate those IRAs into a single IRA to assure the full creditor protect that Michigan statute affords the IRA owner.

Michigan’s version of the Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities provides for a 90-year wait-and-see duration for a future contingent interest to vest, but the Personal Property in Trust Act extends that duration to 360 years.

While a recharacterization of a Roth IRA, back to a traditional IRA is no longer possible, an IRA owner is still able, within a narrow time frame, to change the nature of their contribution from traditional to Roth, or just the opposite.