The Legislative Development and Drafting Committee of the Michigan Probate and Estate Planning Council is currently looking at a possible amendment to the Michigan Trust Code to permit ‘silent trusts’ or what I call a ‘hush trust.’ Many clients would prefer to not have the beneficiaries of Trusts that they create know about the Trust […]

We regularly work with high net worth clients. Perhaps some of those clients own aircraft. I read an article last night that alerted me to some technical requirements that a trustee must deal with when an aircraft is titled in a Trust. If a client transfers title to the aircraft to an existing Trust, or […]

Last month the Michigan Court of Appeals published a decision that came as something of a surprise, at least to an old-timer like me. Because the Court’s decision is published  it carries precedential weight and it must be followed by all probate courts in Michigan. The facts are pretty straightforward. The testator had a longstanding […]

A few months back I wrote a summary about an infamous New Jersey divorce case that was getting a lot of publicity, Phanenstihl where the divorce court ordered the trustee of a third-party support trust to pay to the beneficiary’s soon-to-be ex-wife 50% of the value of the trust corpus, in spite of the presence […]

Its October, the time of year when kids have fun getting lost in cornfield mazes. The same can be said when it comes to advisors who wander into the maze of the IRS’ required minimum distribution rules. Unfortunately those rules are not nearly as much ‘fun’ to navigate as a cornfield maze. Penalties: Let’s start […]

This past weekend I spent some time looking at a client’s proposed transfer of a real estate partnership interest into a Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT), year-end tax planning strategy. A contemplated gift to charity at this time of the year often takes on a priority  for income tax minimization purposes. Moreover, a gift to […]

One thing I learned over the years practicing law is that few clients ever understood life insurance, or more accurately the tax implications of borrowing against their life insurance policy and never repaying their loan. The Tax Court provided a not-so-surprising decision this past summer that is a helpful reminder that borrowing against the cash […]

As I recently reported, last month the IRS actually showed that it had a heart when it issued Revenue Procedure 2016-47. It provides relief for plan participants and IRA owners who blow the 60 day IRA rollover period. A plan participant or an IRA owner can pull money from their qualified plan account or their […]

Last month the IRS surprised us with a gift when it published Rev. Proc. 2016-42. This is welcome news for older clients who want to adopt a charitable remainder annuity trust (CRAT). It is also good news  for those tax exempt entities that rely on CRATs for part of their planned giving campaigns. The surprise […]

I had a brief discussion this morning about disclaimers with regard to a trust that she is currently administering and how disclaimer planning is becoming  more prevalent in estate plans these days. You will recall that a disclaimer is the exercise of a right to reject a gift or inheritance [e.g. bequest, interest in a […]