Tax Reimbursement from a Grantor Trust and Future Trust Modifications

One wonders if there will be more deemed taxable gifts when irrevocable trusts are modified considering the IRS’s recent Chief Counsel Advisory.

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Trusts – Contract or Property, or More?

The academic community continues to debate the question of whether a trust is either a branch of contract law, or a branch of property law. According to others, there are four fundamental legal relationships from which to pick, or perhaps each of which may ultimately be involved in the creation of a trust relationship.

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Capacity, Competency, and Contracts

The capacity to execute a non-probate instrument is different than the capacity to execute a Will, which can lead to inconsistent standards that are applied.

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Your Client is Terminally Ill

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529 Rollover to Roth IRA

Some IRC 529 higher education account balances can now be rolled into a Roth IRA, starting this year. However, there are still some important questions that need to be answered, which means we must await guidance in yet-to-be-published IRS Regulations.

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Grantor Trusts: Revenue Ruling 2004 Under Attack?

The recent Chief Counsel Advice 202352018 casts a cloud over the favorable tax treatment of grantor trusts, which leads to some concerns that the IRS may take future steps to erode the income and estate tax benefits of a grantor trust, or the gift tax implications when a beneficiary of a decanted trust does not object to the trustee’s decanting decision.

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Backdoor Roth IRA Refresher

As an individual’s income continues to rise, the ability to make a Roth IRA contribution diminishes. Thus enters the ‘backdoor’ traditional IRA conversion to a Roth IRA strategy to enable high-earners the ability to contribute to a Roth IRA.

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Backdoor Roth IRA Refresher

As an individual’s income continues to rise, the ability to make a Roth IRA contribution diminishes. Thus enters the ‘backdoor’ traditional IRA conversion to a Roth IRA strategy to enable high-earners the ability to contribute to a Roth IRA.

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Corporate Transparency Act and Trusts

The Corporate Transparency Act as applied to a conventional estate planning trust that holds a reporting entity leads to a lot of unanswered questions on who exactly a beneficial owner is who must be disclosed to FinCEN.

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Funding a Trust with a General Assignment

Using a general assignment to fund a Trust, sometimes executed by an attorney-in-fact is often legally effective to fund the principal/settlor’s Trust, but questions can often arise using a general assignment.

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