Category Archives: Trusts & Estates
Dec 17, 2019 Katheleen GuzmanTrusts & Estates
Intents and acts are different things. Intent without act rings hollow or benign, and acts without intent can be perplexing or seem cavalier. But add one to the other—animate the intent through act, i.e. externalize what lives in the mind of one into the world of all—and powerful legalities result. Accidents turn into assaults; manslaughter into murder. Such casual communications as drafts or unsent texts could even become a last will and testament, accepted into probate as dispositive acts. This last context frames the inquiry that Professor David Horton explores with mastery in Wills Without Signatures.
It might seem that the unsigned will is too narrow an issue to warrant consideration. “No such thing,” one might say. “No signature, no intent; no intent, no will.” But with both precision and sweep, Professor Horton deconstructs that claim to build all sorts of bridges between small views and big pictures and much in between. The task is neither light nor insignificant. Old rules die hard. But with the continued relaxation of formalism and formalities, the constant expansion of technology, and the increasingly casual and tech-dependent ways in which people behave, unsigned (at least in the traditional sense) documents might indeed reflect the genuine last wishes of their makers. If so, and if “testamentary freedom” deserves the veneration that law and society claim for it, what can or must be extrapolated about intent/signature interplays demands analytic care. Continue reading "Fits, Starts, and Finishes"
Sep 13, 2019 Michael YuTrusts & Estates
All professional estate planners are familiar with the family limited partnership (FLP) as a gift and estate tax vehicle to create fractional discounts for federal gift tax purposes and to reduce the decedent’s gross estate for federal estate tax purposes. The main thesis of Professors Manns and Todd‘s piece is that a single-member LLC (SMLLC) is “the ideal initial entity in a gifting strategy.” (P. 325.) They contrast the SMLLC with the FLP, which “the literature continues to describe and analyze,” despite the fact that “the actual state law entity now is often an MMLLC [multi-member LLC].” (P. 344.) The professors discuss how an SMLLC “can be used to blunt the negative effects” (P. 325) (arguably, more successfully than an FLP) as to Internal Revenue Code sections 2512, 1015, and 2036, in part because of a Tax Court case, Pierre v. Commissioner.
In Pierre, the Tax Court held that, although an SMLLC may be disregarded under the check-the-box regulations for federal income tax purposes, those regulations do not provide for the LLC to be disregarded for federal gift tax purposes when a donor transfers an ownership interest in an LLC. (P. 344.) Professors Manns and Todd skillfully argue that, based on Pierre, a taxpayer can take advantage of the differing treatments of an SMLLC for federal income tax and federal gift tax purposes in the following situations (I do not cover in this jot all that the professors wrote). Continue reading "Why You Should Flip Out and Over to a Single-Member LLC"
Aug 7, 2019 David HortonTrusts & Estates
Michael J. Higdon, Parens Patriae
and the Disinherited Child (July 2, 2019), available at
SSRN.
In the United States, parents can disinherit their dependent children. This rule, which I’ll call the “disinheritance power,” is one of the most blazingly idiosyncratic strands of American law. Indeed, no other legal system gives decedents this cruel freedom. And although scholars have criticized the disinheritance power for decades, it remains firmly on the books.
Michael Higdon’s engaging new article attacks this problem from a new angle. Higdon proposes that states use the venerable doctrine of parens patriae as a safety valve against egregious exercises of the disinheritance power. Continue reading "A Novel Limit on the Power to Disinherit Children"
Jul 4, 2019 Alexander Boni-SaenzTrusts & Estates
Alberto B. Lopez & Fredrick E. Vars,
Wrongful Living, 104
Iowa L. Rev. 1921 (2019).
Advance directives are often recommended, but rarely used. The latter fact is an alarming one, and Professors Alberto Lopez and Fredrick Vars tackle this problem in their Article Wrongful Living. After identifying the root causes of this state of affairs, they provide innovative practical and conceptual proposals for implementing the wishes of those who have taken the time to exercise their prospective autonomy. They argue for a tripartite solution to the persistent problem of advance directive underutilization. First, they recommend creating a nationwide registry of advance directives. Second, they suggest that attorneys be exposed to professional discipline and malpractice liability for failing to enter advance directives into said registry. Third, they reconceptualize the nature of the damages that flow from medical interventions that lead to undesired continued life, making wrongful living claims potentially more cognizable to courts. This holistic analysis of advance directives is admirable for providing a realistic blueprint for law reform, and the Article is a must-read for those scholars working in the areas of incapacity planning, health law, and torts.
Lopez and Vars first perform some necessary brush clearing by discussing the historical and philosophical background of advance directives. They detail the legal history of the device, including its origins in informed consent doctrine, the flurry of state and federal legislative activity that allowed and promoted its use, and the high-profile cases of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan. They then turn to the thornier philosophical issues around advance directives, focusing on the Ronald Dworkin-Rebecca Dresser debates on their utility or normative desirability. They conclude, unsurprisingly, that advance directives do protect important autonomy or dignity interests, creating a need to analyze how best to legally implement them. Continue reading "Implementing Prospective Autonomy"
May 27, 2019 Phyllis C. TaiteTrusts & Estates
Nothing incites more dread in law students and professors than the words “Rules Against Perpetuities” (RAP). As states continue to pass laws abolishing or effectively nullifying the doctrine, professors celebrate deleting this topic from their syllabi. Professor Kades demonstrates why, from a social policy perspective, society at large should dread the death of the RAP. In this article, he challenges this trend and demonstrates the negative consequences resulting from dynasty trusts, following the demise of the RAP.
Prof. Kades starts with a brief discussion of wealth and income inequality. Relying, in part, on Thomas Piketty’s research, Prof. Kades discusses how wealth inequality has a greater impact on wealth concentration than income inequality. His research supports the notion that wealth inequality has outpaced income inequity amongst the top wealth holders. He attributes this phenomenon, in part, to a mixture of wealthier individuals earning a higher rate of return on investments and their ability to save a larger part of their income. As inequality grows, individuals have more property to transfer via inheritance. Continue reading "Waging War on Dynastic Wealth with a Wealth Tax"
Apr 26, 2019 Solangel MaldonadoTrusts & Estates
Last year I reviewed Adam J. Hirsch, Inheritance on the Fringes of Marriage, which explored whether donors would want their fiancé, ex-fiancé, separated spouse, or divorcing spouse to take a share of their estate. Following this theme of donor intent vis-à-vis a current or former intimate partner, I was particularly interested in Naomi Cahn’s article, Revisiting Revocation Upon Divorce, in which she challenges lawmakers’ assumptions about decedents’ relationships with their former spouses and their former spouses’ relatives after divorce or annulment. Under the 1990 Uniform Probate Code, divorce or annulment revokes any provisions in a will or nonprobate instrument concerning the former spouse. It also revokes bequests to the former spouse’s relatives, including her children from another relationship, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews—the testator’s former stepchildren and in-laws. Although the presumption of revocation may be rebutted in limited circumstances, this is both difficult and rare. Many states follow the 1990 UPC’s approach.
I must admit that the application of the doctrine of revocation upon divorce to a former spouse’s relatives has never seemed quite right to me. Maybe it is because I share close relationships with my spouse’s relatives and would continue to want them to benefit from my estate if my marriage were to end in divorce. My expectations are also based on my parents’ own experience with divorced relatives. My mother was very close to her sister’s ex-husband until his death and my father is very close to his brother’s ex-wife. Of course, my own personal experience is not evidence of what most donors would want, but Professor Cahn identifies several developments that demonstrate that the donor’s relationship with the former spouse and the former spouse’s relatives may not necessarily end when the legal relationship is terminated. Continue reading "“Renegotiated Families” and Donative Intent"
Mar 27, 2019 Gerry W. BeyerTrusts & Estates
For decades, state and federal governments have increased their watch on fringe lending practices such as payday loans, title loans, tax refund anticipation loans, and pension loans. The main reason for this increased regulation is that these loans often have astronomical interest rates which may force borrowers to come back for renewal loans. Probate loans are a lesser known form of fringe lending that have managed to slip below the radar of nearly all regulatory bodies in the United States.
Professor David Horton identifies the issues and discusses the alarming consequences of probate loans in his article entitled Borrowing in the Shadow of Death: Another Look at Probate Lending. His article examines three common methods of fringe finance, tax refund anticipation loans (RALs), payday loans, and pension loans, and then focuses on probate loans by drawing comparisons between the methods and identifying similarities. Continue reading "The Consequences of Cashing-In on Death"
Feb 21, 2019 Sergio ParejaTrusts & Estates
In 2002, Professor Spitko published An Accrual/Multi-Factor Approach to Intestate Inheritance Rights for Unmarried Committed Partners in the Oregon Law Review. Since then, in 2006, Scotland statutorily began to provide intestate inheritance rights to unmarried cohabitants. Three years later, the Scottish Law Commission recommended reforming and replacing the 2006 law with rights for unmarried cohabitants that would apply to intestate and testate estates. Several years later, in March of 2016, the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament published Post-Legislative Scrutiny of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. Professor Spitko analyzed these developments in Scotland and used them as a basis for reexamining his 2002 proposal.
I must admit that I am a huge fan of looking to other countries’ experiences for insight into our own legal system. I also think our intestacy laws need to be updated to reflect societal changes that have happened in recent years. As a result, I found Professor Spitko’s article to be fascinating. Continue reading "Lessons Learned From Abroad About Intestate Inheritances for Unmarried Cohabitants"
Nov 15, 2018 Michael YuTrusts & Estates
Can an estate or trust with charitable and non-charitable beneficiaries (1) receive income in respect of a decedent (IRD) proceeds, (2) distribute (or set aside) for a charitable purpose the IRD proceeds, and (3) perhaps not be allowed an Internal Revenue (IRC) code section 642(c) income tax charitable deduction? You may know that the answer is “yes.” In their article, Professor F. Ladson Boyle and Jonathan G. Blattmachr not only explain when and why such income tax charitable deduction is available, but also suggest planning techniques to ensure that the deduction is, indeed, available.
To start, here are the authors’ suggested solutions for ensuring that the section 642(c) income tax charitable deduction is available to the estate or trust. First, if possible, designate the charity as the direct beneficiary of the individual retirement account (IRA) or other IRD; do not have the IRD proceeds pass through the decedent’s probate estate or revocable trust. (P. 413.) Second, if the charity cannot be the direct beneficiary of the IRD and if the governing testamentary instrument can be drafted or amended, then ensure that the IRD is “specifically devised to charity as a pre-residuary devise.” (P. 413.) Third, if an estate is in administration, then the personal representative “might distribute the IRD in kind to the charity as a part of the residuary devise due to the charity” (but not to satisfy a specific pecuniary amount). (P. 414.) Continue reading "When Can an Estate or Trust Distribute IRD to a Charity and Receive an Income Tax Charitable Deduction?—The Answer is not Simple"
Oct 15, 2018 Sarah WaldeckTrusts & Estates
Susan Gary,
Restricted Charitable Gifts: Public Benefit, Public Voice, 81
Alb. L. Rev 101 (2018), available at
SSRN.Susan Gary’s Restricted Charitable Gifts: Public Benefit, Public Voice makes the case for legal reforms that reflect the public’s interest in loosening donor control of charitable gifts. Gary writes that her article is aimed at advocating for the adoption of reforms that increase “the consideration of the public benefit standard in charities law,” so I know that she didn’t set out to change the way I teach my Estates course. But that’s exactly what she did, and it’s why I like her article.
In classes on charitable trusts, my big picture questions are about the relationship between donors and charities: when should the law defer to the dead hand and when should it permit charities to modify donor-restricted gifts? Gary’s article has convinced me that the public interest—not donors or charities—should instead assume center stage. Restricted Charitable Gifts: Public Benefit, Public Voice is one of those rare articles that prompts me to re-conceptualize material I’ve taught for many years, particularly the enforcement role of the attorney general. Continue reading "Emphasizing the Public Interest in Charitable Gifts"
