Take-Away: When you meet with your clients this year for their annual review, it is wise to strongly suggest to them that they have their estate planning documents reviewed by their attorney. Not only many the changes brought about by the 2017 Tax Act impact their existing instruments, several reported cases during the past year […]

Take-Away: A Roth IRA is more valuable than a regular or traditional IRA to its owner and to the owner’s designated beneficiaries. This enhanced value is due primarily to the tax-free accumulation and tax-free distribution of income earned by a Roth IRA and the absence of any required minimum distributions (RMD) from the Roth IRA […]

Take-Away: Despite an optional provision of the Uniform Trust Code, upon which much of the Michigan Trust Code is based, a spendthrift provision  in an irrevocable trust is treated, unless the trust instrument expresses a contrary intent, as a material purpose of that trust. Consequently, the presence of a spendthrift provision in an irrevocable trust […]

Take-Away: The use of limited powers of appointment is increasing these days as individuals attempt to build flexibility into their estate plans while avoiding transfer taxation of their heirs. Conferring a limited power of appointment on a dynasty trust beneficiary is an excellent way to avoid estate taxes on the beneficiary’s death, yet give the […]

Take-Away: Despite some blunt court decisions from the past, some courts may not view a fiduciary as having an ongoing duty to ascertain a beneficiary’s eligibility status under a trust. At best, the law remains unsettled as to a trustee’s continuing duty to follow up to ascertain a beneficiary’s entitlement to receive distributions from a […]

Take-Away: A gift of closely held business interests to a child or grandchild is a key component of many estate plans. The problem arises if the donee of that gift, who works in the business, is later in a divorce.  A Michigan divorce judge can treat that gifted interest in the closely held business as […]

Take-Away: A couple of months ago a charitable remainder trust (CRUT) was suggested as a beneficiary of an IRA as an alternative to the loss of the ‘stretch’ IRA. Another option is to direct the decedent’s IRA to a charity in exchange for a testamentary charitable gift annuity (CGA) which may have more appeal to […]

Take-Away: The Michigan Probate and Estate Planning Council currently has formed a committee that is looking at the adoption of the Uniform Directed Trustee Act. Some changes to Michigan’s law will result if the Uniform Act is enacted ‘as is’ including: the trust protector-director will be treated as a fiduciary with an affirmative duty to […]

Take-Away: The IRS just published some rules, and it promises Regulations to follow, on taxpayers who used donor advised funds to satisfy charitable pledges. The Service is apparently concerned about a taxpayer who uses a donor advised fund distribution to satisfy the donor’s separate charitable pledge. Caution needs to be exercised if the charitable pledge […]

Take-Away: Normally when a person files for bankruptcy what is included in the debtor’s estate are assets owned by that person on the date that he/she filed for bankruptcy. That is frequently called the snapshot rule, i.e. a snapshot is taken of all assets owned by the debtor on that date and they are then […]