Take-Away: The ownership of an annuity in any manner other than by an individual can be very complicated. Multiple tax questions arise, without a lot of answers, if a trust owns a tax deferred annuity. In general, annuities are supposed to be owned by natural persons. A trust is not a natural person. Background: This […]

Take-Away: Like all fiduciaries, a trustee is subject to the prohibition on self-dealing. There are some statutory exceptions, such as being reimbursed from the trust estate, but in general a transaction where the trustee is interested is voidable by a trust beneficiary. Individual trustees are far more likely to run afoul of the self-dealing prohibitions […]

Take-Away: A trustee can resign either with notice to all trust beneficiaries and others interested in the trust, or with the approval of a probate court. Less commonly encountered is when a custodian resigns from sponsoring an IRA. Trustee Resignations: A trustee can resign at any time and for any reason, subject to a couple […]

Take-Away: In a recent Chief Counsel Memorandum the IRS concluded that a charitable remainder annuity trust ‘marketing scheme’ resulted in a sham trust and, therefore, would not provide the claimed tax results as promised. General Counsel Memorandum AM 2020-006, Released June 26, 2020 What was marketed was a purported charitable remainder annuity trust [IRC 664(d)(1)] […]

The AFRs for August, 2020, used for intra-family loans, sales to defective grantor trusts, and the IRC 7520 rate used for valuing retained interests follow: Short-term rate (less than three years):  0.17% Mid-term rate (three to nine years):  0.41% Long-term rate (over nine years in duration):  1.12% IRC 7520 rate, used for the valuation of […]

Take-Away: With the historically low interest rates, there may be a desire to rewrite the terms of outstanding loans to reflect the lower prevailing interest rates. Before an existing loan is rewritten with a lower interest rate, caution needs to be exercised to avoid the tax ramifications of replacing a higher rate debt instrument with […]

Take-Away:  The Michigan Court of Appeals just published a decision in which it found that not all postnuptial agreements made by a happily married Michigan couple are invalid per se and against public policy. This decision also provides an interesting interpretation with regard to prenuptial agreements which have been of questionable enforceability in light of […]

Take-Away: As a gross generalization, the Michigan Trust Code provides a series of default rules when a trust instrument is silent on a question. Only a handful of Michigan Trust Code provisions prevail over the express terms of the trust. A question addressed in a recent court decision is whether the trust instrument’s express provisions […]

Take-Away: Much has been written about the use of a charitable remainder trust as one way to work-around the SECURE Act’s 10-year mandatory distribution rule for most inherited retirement accounts. Recently innovative, albeit somewhat obtuse, alternatives to the use of a charitable remainder trust have surfaced, that include an IRC 678 beneficiary deemed owner trust […]

Take-Away: Surveys and statistics show that more and more Americans cohabit without marriage. Federal and state law reward couples who marry and protect the rights and interests of those who choose to marry. However, there is no comparable protection to the partner in a committed cohabitation relationship, who may have few remedies once the cohabitation […]