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Taxation & Estate Planning

The Ohio Trust & Estate Blog

Ohio law on Trusts, Estates and their legislation and litigation.
By Michael D. Bonasera, Esq.

Post Frequency: 0.5/day

Last Entry: December 18, 2012 at 14:46:48

“Living Trust Mills Update”

Posted on January 26, 2008
The Connecticut Elder Law Blog picked up on Dave Goldman’s post here listing recent Living Trust Scam Articles and resources on his blog. Its a great list that I’m very glad David took the time to put together. David emailed me after I posted here to thank me for linking to his original article on the same subject...

New Poverty Guidelines Will Affect Medicare/Medicaid Eligibility

Posted on January 26, 2008
As if it wasn’t bad enough already for those relying on Medicare/Medicaid: New federal poverty level (FPL) guidelines published January 23, 2008 will affect eligibility levels for many public benefits, including health benefits for older people and people with disabilities...

Pet Trusts In California

Posted on January 26, 2008
Professor Beyer writes here about SB 685 being considered by the California legislature. At one time, California was a leader in the pet trust field when it passed Probate Code § 15212 providing that “[a] trust for the care of a designated domestic or pet animal may be performed by the trustee for the life of the animal, whether or not there is a beneficiary who can seek enforcement or termination of the trust and whether or not the terms of the trust contemplate a longer duration...

A Different Set of Tax Rules for Non-U.S. Citizen Spouses

Posted on January 26, 2008
Thanks to Michael Keenan of the The Connecticut Elder Law Blog for this post warning those couples who are not both US residents. When you have two spouses who are both U.S. citizens, then upon the death of the first spouse there is never any tax regardless of how large your estate is...

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9 Out of 10 CPAs Say Their Clients Are Concerned About…

Posted on January 25, 2008
1. Retirement 2. Health Care Costs 3. Education Costs In responding to an open-ended question, nine out of 10 CPAs surveyed said their individual clients were concerned about retirement. Costs associated with health care and education were ranked by respondents as the second (59 percent) and third (47 percent) financial concerns of clients...

Not Trusts & Estates But…

Posted on January 25, 2008
… it is about Ohio… and blogging… And blogging in Ohio. The Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law has its own blog now. You can find it here. Click Here to share this post with other social netowrking sites

Elder Abuse Roundup

Posted on January 25, 2008
No one wants to talk about it but it happens all the time… Much more than is actually reported. Loved ones of residents need to be constantly on the look-out for signs of abuse as reflected by their behavior. The growing issue of elder abuse in [Western North Carolina] This article contains some good (and scary stats)...

Living Trust Scams/Trust Mills/Elderlaw Planning Seminars - STAY AWAY!

Posted on January 21, 2008
A living trust scam is typically where [older] couples are drawn to a seminar (of some kind) at which they are sold a one-size-fits-all estate plan that almost always involves some kind of a trust. However, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all estate plan...

Legacy Trusts For The EveryMan/Woman/Couple

Posted on January 19, 2008
This NYT Article by Hillary Chura on January 5, discusses the benefits of legacy trusts for “regular people” - aka, those of us who don’t have millions of dollars: ONCE only for the superrich, dynasty trusts now provide a way for the rest of us to leave money to loved ones, preserve wealth for future generations and even control how an inheritance is used once donors die...

A Challenge to Wasington’s Slayer Statute

Posted on January 19, 2008
From The Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog a few days ago. (direct link here) Washington’s slayer statute is like others in that its designed to prevent those who are guilty of killing someone from collecting from their estate. Apparently though, the Washington State’s statute is notoriously vague...

Child Support Obligations of Sperm Donors

Posted on January 13, 2008
From The Volokh Conspiracy comes this post on Ferguson v. McKiernan, 2007 WL 4555436, Pa., December 27, 2007 (available here in PDF). A man (McKiernan) agrees to provide sperm to an unmarried woman (Ferguson) who wishes to become a single parent but wants to use the sperm of someone she knows rather than an anonymous donor...

Twins Marry in England

Posted on January 13, 2008
This story at CNN a few days ago is wild: Two British twins who were separated at birth, grew up apart, fell in love, and married. It was not until later that they discovered they were related and the marriage annulled. The article does not reveal how long they were together before discovering the truth...

Naming Your Trust as Beneficiary of Your IRA/401k, etc.

Posted on January 13, 2008
In a post today called “Leaving IRA Money to a Minor”, David Goldman of The Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog (which is chock-full of good and sensible advice), links to this article at Fox Business about leaving your IRA to a trust and the benefits of doing so...

Organ Donation in Great Britain - Opt Out, Not In.

Posted on January 13, 2008
In a move that runs counter to the way we do it on our side of the pond, “Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent.” Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year...

Medicare Part D Wins; The Budget Loses

Posted on January 10, 2008
And I’m ok with that. This good news came out in this post from Mr. Keenan at The Connecticut Elder Law Blog. Citing this article in the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Keenan says: Believe it or not, a full year has gone by since the establishment of Medicare Part D (Medicare drug benefit), and after a highly confusing start to the sweeping program, the Chicago Tribune reports in this article that out-of-pocket expenses for patients dropped by 13...

“Decanting” Trusts in Ohio

Posted on January 04, 2008
A recent and interesting development in trust administration has made its way to Ohio, that of allowing a trustee to distribute the assets of one trust into another trust with substantially similar administrative provisions and beneficiaries, called “Decanting...

Ohio vs. The Feds re Expanding Medicaid to Cover More Children

Posted on January 04, 2008
According to this article in today’s NYT “[t]he Bush administration is imposing restrictions on the ability of states to expand eligibility for Medicaid, in an effort to prevent them from offering coverage to families of modest incomes who, the administration argues, may have access to private health insurance...

An Ohio Lawyer’s Duty of Safekeeping Funds

Posted on January 04, 2008
On December 7, 2007, the Ohio Board Of Commissioners On Grievances And Discipline issued Opinion 2007-7 (Word) addressing what duties a lawyers has when holding a client’s funds that the lawyer “knows” may belong to third persons. It is this latter part - the “third persons” part - that is especially vexing for us as fiduciary practitioners because of the potential ethical liabilities that creates...

Trust Beneficiary Rights in Ohio - 3 questions by 3 potential clients

Posted on January 02, 2008
During the course of the last three months I have received three inquiries from potential clients all concerned about the same thing: What right do I have as a beneficiary of a [Ohio] trust? Usually I find the potential client just wants to see a copy of “their” trust but their Trustee is being difficult… This is easily cured...

A Good Example Of Fiduciary Duty - And Of Its Breach

Posted on December 31, 2007
Joel A. Schoenmeyer of The Death & Taxes Blog writes here about an oft-repeated issue: How do you define fiduciary duty? This question is obviously important when a client comes to you alleging that such a duty has been breached. Wikipedia has 11 relationships in which a fiduciary duty is commonly found but then it follows those up with additional “possibilities”… Its not exactly a science...

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