June marked the end of a four year complex trust administration odyssey. This administration could have been a television show, as it had every intrigue you can imagine - power struggles, illiquid assets, environmental claims, a defunct closely held business with unpaid claims, an injunction preventing the sale of real estate, property tax claims, third [...]
DeAngelis Legal advised long time Scottsdale clients on appropriate IRA beneficiary designations. After the 2017 Tax Act, non-spouse beneficiaries can no longer take distributions over their lifetime and in most cases must take all distributions within 10 years of the account owner’s death. This makes planning for large retirement accounts difficult, especially when you see [...]
An increase in deaths in Arizona over the winter caused an increase in probate and trust administration. DeAngelis Legal continued to provide assistance to family members with these administrations from the preparation of simple Affidavit of Small Estates and Informal Probates to more complex situations requiring Formal Probates and difficult trust administrations. Each situation is [...]
DeAngelis Legal prepared the estate plan for a young couple with generational wealth. This project was made more complicated by one spouse’s interest in four irrevocable trusts and a myriad of out of state family businesses gifted from the spouse’s parents. While the couple’s planning was simple, DeAngelis Legal assisted the spouse understand her rights [...]
DeAngelis Legal represented a Scottsdale estate planning client with the decanting of his parent’s irrevocable trust. The client is a current beneficiary of the trust, but wanted to clarify the terms upon which his children as secondary beneficiaries would receive its assets, especially because one child had special needs. DeAngelis Legal prepared the new trust [...]
DeAngelis Legal assisted two new clients to open informal probate to transfer assets out of the deceased person’s name. In both situations, the deceased person failed to transfer the asset to their trust and the account custodian (one a financial institution and the other a title company) required “Letters of Personal Representative” before they would [...]
DeAngelis Legal assisted with the trust decanting of an irrevocable trust. We prepared the new trust instrument which holds a variety of closely held businesses, real estate entities and marketable securities. The old instrument was prepared by another law firm and its terms did not meet with the settlors’ intent. DeAngelis Legal worked with the [...]
DeAngelis Legal assisted a Sedona high net worth couple with a comprehensive review of their estate planning documents, including their wills, trust, and family limited partnership. DeAngelis Legal met with the couple to learn about their objectives, reviewed their current plan and made recommendations, prepared documents updating their plan to make it consistent with their [...]
DeAngelis Legal assisted new client with the judicial termination of a Charitable Remainder Trust. The trust was established many years earlier and was struggling to cover increased administrative costs and distributions to the income beneficiaries. DeAngelis Legal worked with the income beneficiaries, the charitable remainder beneficiaries, their accountant and the corporate trustee to value the [...]
Estate Planning Update July, 2021 1. 2021 Annual Gift Tax Exclusion: remains at $15,000 per donor, per donee. 2. 2021 Gift and Estate Tax Exemption: increased to $11,700,000 per donor through 2025, see #6. 3. Marital Deduction for Transfers to U.S. Spouse: unlimited. 4. 2021 Generation Skipping Tax Exclusion: increased to $11,700,000 per donor through [...]
