Updating Our Look This month we introduce the first update to the appearance of Trusts & Estates magazine in many years. Our goal: to make the packaging as sophisticated and dignified as the content has always been. But this is more than a face...
Guidelines issued by the U.S. Treasury Department provide voluntary best practices for U.S.-based charities to reduce the possibility that charitable funds will finance terrorist activities. HIGHLIGHTS OF U.S. TREASURY NEWS RELEASE (NOV. 7 2002)...
The most important element in determining gift and estate liability is the value of the asset being transferred. To reduce that value, estate planners create family limited partnerships (FLPs) and family limited liability companies (LLCs). The...
It's getting more difficult for trustees to exercise prudent fiduciary responsibility in the life insurance arena. They must contend with developments affecting the policy's performance (including premiums that continue beyond the projected self...
How often do we hear these days: Well, you have to understand, we're not really in the trust business for the trustee fees or We are a bank. Trusteeship is just an adjunct to our core business or What new assets will we bring under management if...
The American Law Institute's Restatement Third, Property (Wills and Other Donative Transfers) Volume 2 has just been released. The most important change is a recommendation that courts adopt the mistake doctrine, according to John H. Langbein, a...
Steve Ann Chambers, president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and a member of the Washington Bar, reports that there has been a recent uptick in the number of states adopting statutes recognizing animals as beneficiaries of valid, enforceable...
This article presents an estate planner's perspective on the purchase of life insurance inside a client's qualified plan account. Buying life insurance inside a qualified plan as a way to reduce income and transfer taxes otherwise applicable to...
How are donors to know which charities are and worthy of their largesse? How can they be sure that the gift they make today will be used as they think, and not to fuel a terrorist attack? Since the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, it has come to...
