A Late 2019 tax change will have a major impact on retirement planning! On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, better known as the “SECURE Act.” Although it passed the House in July, the SECURE Act only recently passed through the Senate on December […]
Trustees have a duty to share trust information with beneficiaries. The nature and extent of the duty to inform is not well defined in the Texas Trust Code, however, and there is little case law on point. There is slightly more guidance with regard to the duty to account, which is a subpart of the […]
Many trust instruments prohibit trustees from relieving themselves of a legal duty under applicable law. Such language, which is sometimes referred to as an “Upjohn” clause after the case of Upjohn v. U.S. (30 A.F.T.R. 2d. 72-5918 (W.D. Mich 1972)), is most often, intended to prohibit a trustee from using trust assets to pay for […]
Portions of this article were originally printed in Dallas Bar Association Headnotes, December 2017. When it comes to luxury property, such as beach houses, lake houses, ski condos, hunting leases, aircraft, watercraft, limousines, and the like, two rules almost always apply: First, they are expensive to own and operate. Second, they tend to sit dormant […]
Different legal actions require different levels of mental capacity to be valid. For example, the level of mental capacity required to sign a will, referred to as “testamentary capacity,” is lower than the level of capacity required to sign a contract, called “contractual capacity.” The various standards are discussed below. Capacity to Sign a Will […]
Trusts and estates often pay more tax than individuals in like circumstances. This is not because they are taxed at higher rates, but rather because the same rates applicable to individuals are “compressed,” meaning that each marginal rate increase happens at a lower level of income than it does for individuals. For example, the highest […]
By Christian Kelso June 4, 2016 It is a little known fact, but the über-rich have a trick for both keeping the peace in their families and preserving their vast fortunes. They participate in something called family governance planning. Most of us are unfamiliar with this concept, but it’s not difficult to grasp on a […]
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