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Estate Planning

Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog

A resource to enhance the teaching of courses that address intestate succession, wills, trusts, estate administration, non-probate assets, planning for disability, and other matters pertaining to estate planning.
By Gerry W. Beyer

Post Frequency: 44.9/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:00:00

Top SSRN Downloads

Posted on May 04, 2010
Here are the top downloads from March 4, 2010 to May 3, 2010 from the SSRN Journal of Wills, Trusts, & Estates Law for all papers announced in the last 60 days. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 202 The Federal...

Leaving Roth IRAs to Minors

Posted on May 04, 2010
Those who inherit Roth IRAs are required to withdraw a portion of the funds annually based on their age rather than being able to leave it all in the Roth to grow at a tax-free rate. If a Roth owner...

Nicolas Cage Buys a Pyramid

Posted on May 04, 2010
Nicolas Cage has a history of financial crises, and he seems to be going through another. He lost his Bel Air home this month and was hit with a $5 million tax bill earlier this year. He?s also been forced...

Chief Clerk of Nassau County Surrogate Court to Present Lecture in New York

Posted on May 04, 2010
The following is announcement I received via email regarding an upcoming presentation sponsored by the New York County Lawyer's Association: NYCLA Presents Lewinson Lecture:?Equity in the 21st Century, a Surrogate's Court Perspective" on May 12 On Wednesday, May 12 at...

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GRATs Subject to Reform

Posted on May 04, 2010
Perhaps due to their popularity over the past two years, GRATs are a target of the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010. This tax legislation was passed by the House in March and is now being considered...

Dead Man Riding

Posted on May 04, 2010
Twenty-two year old David was murdered on Thursday, April 22, 2010. His family hired Marin Funeral Home in Puerto Rico to exhibit his remains on his favorite motorcycle per his request. This same funeral home embalmed the ?Dead Man Standing?...

AMBIS Conducts 2010 Funeral Survey

Posted on May 03, 2010
The Austin Memorial & Burial Information Society (AMBIS) conducted a 2010 Funeral Home Price Survey in the Austin area. The results show major pricing differences. For example, the price for a full funeral with a 20-gauge metal casket ranges from...

The History of the Estate Tax

Posted on May 03, 2010
David Joulfaian (U.S. Dept. of Treasury) has posted on SSRN his article entitled The Federal Estate Tax: History, Law, and Economics. The abstract of the article is below: The estate tax is the only wealth tax levied by the Federal...

LifeSharers Network Releases Informative Impact Movie

Posted on May 03, 2010
LifeSharers has put together an informative video about the LifeSharers program. The short 3-minute video is designed for forwarding via email and provides the following details about the LifeSharers network: Over half the people waiting for an organ transplant in...

Minimizing Estate Taxes in 2011

Posted on May 03, 2010
If Congress fails to act, the estate tax exemption will revert to $1 million and will force many more families to use estate planning techniques to avoid a 55% estate tax. The following six strategies can help you minimize or...

An Empirical Study of Probate in the Midwest

Posted on May 02, 2010
Jason C. Kirklin has posted on SSRN his article entitled Measuring the Testator: An Empirical Study of Probate in Jacksonian America, Ohio State L.J. (forthcoming 2011). The abstract of the article is below: ?Measuring the Testator? employs an empirical study...

New York Reforms Law on Establishing Paternity for Inheritance Purposes

Posted on May 02, 2010
The following discussion is reproduced with permission from Bridget Crawford, New York Reforms Law on Establishing Paternity for Inheritance Purposes, Feminist Law Professors, April 30, 2010: New York State Governor David A. Paterson has signed into law a bill that...

Opt-Out Organ Donation Law Proposed in New York

Posted on May 01, 2010
As I previously mentioned, New York (and the rest of the world) is faced with a shortage of organ donors. Currently the biggest obstacle is while 9 out of 10 people are in favor of organ donation, only 1 out...

'Fact-Based Fiduciary Accountability in Canada'

Posted on May 01, 2010
Robert Flannigan (professor, University of Saskatchewan) has posted on SSRN his article entitled Fact-Based Fiduciary Accountability in Canada, Advocates' Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 431 (2010). An abstract of the article is below: The Supreme Court endeavored in Galambos v...

Rule Against Perpetuities: An Interest too Remote Cannot Not be Severed, Making Deed Void

Posted on April 30, 2010
Kerr v. Bauer, 222 P.3d 1117 (Or. Ct. App. 2009): A deed purported to convey the grantor?s real property to her sons, in trust, to provide a ?place of rest, recreation and recuperation? for her children, grandchildren, and ?descendants.? There...

Review of 'Gifts: A Study in Comparative Law'

Posted on April 30, 2010
Iris J. Goodwin (associate professor of law, University of Tennessee) has written and published a book review of Gifts: A Study in Comparative Law, which was written by Richard Hyland (distinguished professor, Rutgers Law) and published in 2009. The following...

Probate Judge May Have Enabled Fraud on the Elderly

Posted on April 30, 2010
Elderly individual Marie Long had a stroke in 2005 and subsequently came under the protection of Lindsay Ellis, a probate court judge, who appointed Sun Valley Group as Marie?s guardian. Marie was worth $1.3 million in 2005, but now she...

Indiana Supreme Court Busts Insurance Agency for Unauthorized Practice of Law

Posted on April 30, 2010
Starting in 1995, United Financial Systems Corporation (UFSC) marketed and sold estate planning services, including wills and trusts. Once a client agreed to the estate planning work, a UFSC assistant would gather the information and send it to an outside...

Death of Settlor of Revocable Trusts is a Change in Ownership

Posted on April 29, 2010
Steinhart v. County of Los Angeles, 223 P.3d 57 (Calif. 2010): The California Supreme Court held that a ?change of ownership? allowing a taxing jurisdiction to reassess real property for purposes of taxation occurs at the death of the settlor...

Book Review: Immortality and the Law

Posted on April 29, 2010
Christopher Caldwell has written a review on Ray Madoff?s Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead. The introduction to the review follows: Two rough principles have governed the way we think about our duties to dead...

Estate Planning for Clients Suffering From Multiple Sclerosis & Parkinson's Disease

Posted on April 29, 2010
Rosalind Kalb, PhD, Nicholas LaRocca, PhD, Alessandro Di Rocco, MD, Mary Hughes, MD, and Martin M. Shenkman, CPA, MBA, PFS, JD, have written an outline-style article entitled Psychological and Emotional Impact of Chronic Illness on Estate Planning: Case Study Comparing...

Styron's Family Allowed to Control E-book Rights

Posted on April 29, 2010
Contracts between authors and publishers did not specifically mention e-books until about fifteen years ago. As a result, legal battles have arisen over the right to publish electronic editions of older books. Publishers typically claim e-book rights, claiming that ?in...

Resulting Trust Deemed Appropriate Mechanism to Unwind Joint Tenancy

Posted on April 28, 2010
Gregoire v. Gregoire, 987 A.2d 909 (Vt. 2009): Parents took title to real property used in the family business as tenants by the entirety with son as a joint tenant with rights of survivorship. Although the son signed the promissory...

Watch Out for Medical Identity Theft

Posted on April 28, 2010
The Web Nurse Blog reports that medical identity theft is on the rise. Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses your identity for health insurance or treatment reasons and in the process, changes your medical records regarding blood type, allergies,...

Coin Collection Returned to China

Posted on April 28, 2010
Howard Bowker began his Chinese coin collection while stationed in Hankou, China in 1923. Some coins in his collection date back to 200 B.C. Last week, two of Bowker's grandchildren hand-carried their grandfather?s priceless collection to the Shanghai Mint Museum...

Constructive and Resulting Trusts Book

Posted on April 28, 2010
Hart Publishing recently published Constructive and Resulting Trusts, ed. Charles Mitchell (2010). The publisher's description of the book is below: Constructive and resulting trusts have a long history in English law, and the law which governs them continues to develop...

Trust Recruiting is Back

Posted on April 27, 2010
As the financial industry prepares for a growth cycle, trust companies are emerging from a hiring freeze and are hiring people through national recruiting firms as well as in-house departments. Finding jobs in the trust industry, however, isn?t the same...

Comparing American and Australian Laws for Protecting Disinherited Children

Posted on April 27, 2010
Adam Dayan recently published his note entitled The Kids Aren't Alright: An Examination of Some of the Flaws in American Law Regarding Child Disinheritance, the Reasons Children Should be Protected, and a Recommendation for the United States to Learn From...

Indemnification agreement the beneficiaries executed as part of a receipt for distribution is not a trust instrumentt

Posted on April 27, 2010
Heiman v. Mayfield, 686 S.E.2d 284 (Ga. Ct. App. 2009): The trustee in Heiman made distributions to the beneficiaries of the trust and the beneficiaries executed a release and indemnification agreement releasing the trustee for all claims ?of whatever kind...

CLE on FLP and LLC Strategies

Posted on April 27, 2010
The National Constitution Center is sponsoring a 60-minute audio conference entitled FLPs & LLCs: How to Take Advantage of the 2010 Estate Tax on May 19, 2010. A summary of the program is below: FLPs and LLCs are the ideal...

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