There is a fairly good change that Michigan will soon adopt new power of attorney laws that are intended to better protect older principals from financial abuse and curb the knee-jerk requirement of many banks or other financial institutions that demand fresh powers of attorney signed by the principal, often on the financial institution’s form.

As individuals migrate to different states, or individuals own property in other states e.g. a Florida condominium, or where spouses actually live in different states due to their employment commitments, it is important to be aware of, and consider how, the elective share laws of multiple states impact an estate plan.

There are only a couple of limited situations where an individual age 72 or older has earned income who should consider a contribution to a traditional IRA.

Before the IRS gets around to publishing Temporary Regulations to implement the SECURE Act 2.0 this year, Congress already is preparing a bill to ‘fix’ ambiguities or mistake in the original Act.

One of the big questions that no one seems to be able to comfortably answer is: “What is the income tax basis is in grantor trust’s assets when the grantor of the trust dies?”

The world of retirement IRA distributions if filled with acronyms like ROTH, QCD, RBD, RMD, etc. Then, the world of IRAs has its own set of Forms that have to be filed, sometimes annually, to report all activities and transactions that deal with an IRA.

The tax laws seem to be filled with quirks. One such quirk is the ability to take a qualified Health Savings Account (HSA) funding distribution from a traditional IRA. Yet, as with anything that deals with HSAs, the funding distribution can get complicated real quickly.

A trustee’s duty to annually communicate and account seems to be expanding to potentially peripheral persons, called potential distributees, who may or may not, ever benefit from a Trust.

The failure to timely repay a qualified plan loan results in a taxable deemed distribution along with exposure to the early distribution 10% penalty, and possibly also a 20% substantial underpayment of tax penalty.

There is not much mystery to the income tax basis of jointly held assets between spouses. Yet there is one wrinkle that might be exploited by some couples with long ago acquired jointly owned property.