PASSING THE FARM IS LIKE PASSING ON THE FAMILY CORPORATION There is no doubt that some modern farmers run large multi-million dollar operations right in their backyard. Maintaining a herd of cows and other grazing stock costs potentially millions to buy or lease (or both) land for the animals to…
BEST LAID PLANS DO NOT ALWAYS WORK OUT A case with an interesting factual background came out of Texas recently. While it was based on Texas law and the case is binding in only Texas, the legal principles discussed by the Court are equally applicable to New York or any…
SUBSTANTIVE PROOF NEEDED The issue of consent and state of mind touches upon perhaps some of the most personal and human issues imaginable. This blog explored issues related to the capacity necessary for a person to create a will. Passing on the bounty of your work to your loved ones…
HYBRID PLANNING TOOL – COMPOUND INTEREST AND IMMEDIATE PAYOUT There are some retirement strategies that people engage in that have many benefits one the one hand with a similar amount of disadvantages on the other. Life is like that, it involves trade offs and often you get what you pay…
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS Most people are aware that April 15 is tax day. That simply means that you have to have your taxes filed and paid by that date and that the year that those taxes are due for are from January 1st to December 31st of the…
HUGUETTE CLARK AS EXEMPLAR The last member of the gilded age passed away just a few years ago. Huguette Clark’s life, in some ways, seems to mirror the classic Orson Welles classic One of the first things that she did to insure an estate battle was to pass the entirety of her…
NAMING A TRUST AS AN IRA BENEFICIARY IN YOUR WILL Recently this blog touched on some of the issues related to leaving an individual retirement account to your heirs in a will, as found here. There are many options that people have to leave their IRA to others in a…
SOMETIMES MAY BE BETTER TO DISTRIBUTE THAN HOLD ON Most trustees know that they have to make an accounting and pay taxes on at least a quarterly basis. While accounting itself may seem like a relatively simple theoretical proposition, the truth is much different. The devil is in the details.…
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN ESTATE PLANNING This blog explored the generic topic of intellectual property in estate planning in the recent past, which is worth reading for a discussion on the larger topic. Estate planning for the artist or even the art collector is certainly related but worthy of its own…
MONEY LEFT IN IRA AT TIME OF PASSING NOT SUBJECT TO NORMAL IRA RULES This blog previously discussed the Supreme Court case of Clark v. Rameker and the legal implications of money remaining in an IRA at death, that is in turn left to the heirs of an estate. Putting…