Take-Away Message: Married couples should strongly consider adopting  spousal lifetime access trusts at this time as a ‘hedged’ planning strategy while they await possible change in the federal transfer tax laws. Context: Over the past couple of months I must have read over 15 articles in estate planning journals that address the question what to […]

Basic RMD Rules: If a spouse inherits an IRA from a spouse who died after his required beginning date [which is April 1 of the year that follows the year in which he attained age 70 ½] the inheriting spouse [let’s call her wife or the survivor] must take the required minimum distribution [RMD] for […]

Take-Away Message: When clients name a child as the sole trustee of an irrevocable trust for that child’s benefit, there is a risk that creditors will be able to claim the trust assets, even if the trust contains an ascertainable standard for distributions and a spendthrift or anti-alienation clause. Background Assumption: We often encounter irrevocable […]

At this morning’s TRO meeting Melinda mentioned the benefits of using a Transfer-on-Death (TOD) beneficiary designation for some clients, particularly to name a client’s trust as the designated beneficiary of an investment account. As I have mentioned in the past, I often encouraged married clients who held separate investment accounts to continue to maintain their […]

With the uncertainty that surrounds the possibility of tax law changes by Congress this year, what advice can an advisor provide to their clients when it comes to estate planning? We are left wondering if there will be a federal estate tax, a federal generation skipping transfer tax, a federal gift tax,  a ‘step-up’ (or […]

Background: With all of the talk these days about the expected fundamental changes in the tax laws Congress might adopt this year, there has been a renewed (or perhaps an accelerated) interest in the use of an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT). While no one actually can predict what the final tax laws will look […]

While we do not regularly deal with prenuptial agreements at GLT, we know that many of our clients  are in second and third marriages who have entered into a prenuptial agreement with the intent to protect their premarital separate property assets in the event of death (where the surviving spouse often waives his/her elective or […]

There was a recent case  out of Oklahoma that came close to answering a question many advisors have wondered about since 2010, whether portability is an asset. The reported decision is from the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Estate of Anne S. Vose v Lee.2017 WL 167587 (Okla. 2017) The facts were pretty predictable that brought this […]

We can expect a fair amount of discussion and analysis in the coming year with regard to asset protection trusts now that Michigan has enacted its own Qualified Disposition in Trust Act, i.e. the legal authority to create a self-settled Michigan asset protection trust. There will no doubt be some interesting questions associated with the […]

A recent Tax Court Decision came across my desk the other day that acts as a reminder that making a spousal rollover of a decedent spouse’s IRA is sometimes not the ‘no brainer’ decision that clients and advisors often ascribe to it. In Susanne D. Oster Ozimkoski, T.C. Memo, 2016-228 (December 19, 2016) the Husband […]