Practitioners have long regarded trusts as essential tools for estate planning in no small part because of the potential they offer for federal gift and estate tax savings if structured properly. With so much emphasis on federal tax issues, however... Read More
By Carol F. Burger , Molly F. James , Melissa Roberts Tannery and Tania S. Sebastian Effective July 1, 2012, Virginia has a new law which permits the trustee to change some provisions of an irrevocable trust by appointing or decanting income and/or... Read More
BY: FARHAD AGHDAMI & JEFFREY D. CHADWICK On April 4, 2012, Governor McDonnell signed Senate Bill 11 into law, which permits the creation of "self-settled spendthrift trusts" in Virginia. A self-settled spendthrift trust is an irrevocable... Read More
Introduction The use of an irrevocable trust to hold one or more life insurance policies, with the main purpose of keeping the life insurance proceeds out of the grantor’s estate, is an established estate tax planning technique. There are circumstances... Read More
BY: FARHAD AGHDAMI & JEFFREY D. CHADWICK On April 4, 2012, Governor McDonnell signed Senate Bill 110 into law, which allows trustees to exercise the power to distribute trust income or principal to or for the benefit of a beneficiary by distributing... Read More
By David N. Anthony , Melissa Roberts Tannery and Tania S. Sebastian Beginning July 1, 2012, Virginia will allow its residents to create qualified self-settled spendthrift trusts and achieve some protection from creditors. Va. Code Ann. §§... Read More
By Danielle T. Zaragoza, Esq ., Morrison & Foerster LLP The basic concept of a unitrust is that a fixed percentage of the fair market value of a trust's assets, redetermined each year, is paid out to the "income" beneficiary, regardless... Read More
By David N. Anthony , Melissa Roberts Tannery and Tania S. Sebastian A change in Virginia law effective July 1, 2012, will limit trustee liability with respect to directed trusts, which is good news for corporate and individual trustees alike. The... Read More
How do you advise a trust beneficiary who has repeatedly requested information from a trustee of a trust in which the beneficiary has an interest, only to be met with silence, delay, or incomplete and inconsistent responses? In this Analysis, trust... Read More
An alternative to gifting direct interests in a family home to children or other family members is to transfer the property to a family limited partnership (FLP) or a limited liability company (LLC) and to make gifts of interests in the partnership... Read More
As a result of the increasing use of trusts in estate planning and a lack of comprehensive codification of the law governing trusts, in July of 2006 Virginia adopted its version of the Uniform Trust Code (UTC). Similarly, West Virginia has adopted... Read More
New York's decanting statute, EPTL 10-6.6 , was significantly amended by the 2011 Legislative Session. As a result, the trustee of a New York irrevocable trust has a much greater opportunity to decant assets from an existing trust to another trust... Read More
In this Commentary, Elaine Gagliardi discusses proposed regulations specifying the amount to be included in the gross estate when the decedent at death retains an income, annuity or unitrust interest in a trust or the right to use a personal residence... Read More
In this Analysis, Andrew W. Singer Esq. provides a review of the estates and trusts that qualify to be shareholders in an S Corporation. He writes: Subchapter S has from its inception allowed estates of deceased individual shareholders to be shareholders... Read More
By Liza Weiman Hanks | Dear Liza: We live in Nebraska. I own a ranch with my brother. Part of it we inherited and a small part we purchased from family members. The total value of the ranch is $2.7 million. We have a buy sell agreement between us.... Read More