Recent private letter rulings issued by the Internal Revenue Service1 have created concern among estate-planning attorneys regarding the best way to draft trusts that are intended as potential receptacles of IRA or other qualified plan benefits...

After a 2006 opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in McCord v. Commissioner,1 many practitioners expanded their use of defined value clauses for certain transfer tax planning strategies. But many lawyers remained reluctant...

In a 2002 article,1 we examined at length the income-tax effects of the termination of a grantor trust by reason of the death of the grantor in the context of an installment sale.2 Acknowledging then that the law was unsettled, we considered the...

There are many ways to draft a modified accumulation trust. Here's one: Separate Accounting for Retirement Arrangements Except as otherwise provided in paragraph 3, below, if any trust hereunder shall have the right to receive retirement assets ...

A Pennsylvania court weighs in on a former wrestler’s bid to unseal the records of du Pont’s incapacity hearing so as to peer into his trust documents