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Educational FYIs
These recent developments and case studies address any aspect of the law that touches on estate planning. They offer an interesting perspective and/or warning. The frequency of release varies from month to month and week to week. Our purpose for sharing these Educational FYI's to you is to further enlighten you on the many variables involved in the fine balancing act of proper estate planning.

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Article on Family Caregivers
The Sunday, September 9, 2007 issue of Parade magazine contains an article by Gail Sheehy on family caregiving. It will recount some of her own experiences as a spousal caregiver to her husband.

New Study Finds Changes Needed to U.S. Health System to Accommodate Needs of Boomers
The aging baby boom generation is likely to increase the nation's disabled population, and a study says the United States needs a better system to provide care for them. More than 40 million Americans currently have some sort of disability, the Institute of Medicine reported Tuesday.

Will Effectively Exercised Power of Appointment Even Though Not Admitted to Probate
Father (who died in 1981) established a living trust that divided into survivor's and family shares, with the former giving his surviving wife a general testamentary power of appointment and the latter giving her a power of appointment exercisable by will, deed, conveyance, bill of sale, gift or any other written instrument.  If Mother did not exercise the powers of appointment, the survivor's trust would pour into the family trust, which would in turn be distributed unequally among daughter, granddaughter and grandson.  Mother executed a will in 1985 purporting to appoint the entire trust corpus of both trusts; the survivor's trust was appointed outright to daughter and the family trust in equal shares among daughter, granddaughter and grandson; Mother died in 1997.  Relying on advice of counsel, the trustee and family members decided not to seek probate of Mother's will. 

Will's Assertion of Mistreatment by Disinherited Child is Not Grounds for Invalidity
Decedent's will specifically disinherited his only child and some of his grandchildren "by reason of their ... treatment" of him. Son challenged the will, claiming that it was improperly executed, and also that the decedent had operated under "an insane delusion that four of his grandchildren did not care about him."

Disclaimer Reformed to Avoid GST Tax
Daughter signed disclaimers of her interests in her mother's property in two different states.  After the disclaimers were completed, she learned that her mother's GST exemption was only $650,000 and that the disclaimed property would be subject to the tax.  She signed an affidavit indicating that she had disclaimed by mistake, and sought reformation of one or both disclaimers.  State high court rules that reformation of the two disclaimers is permitted, and remands to the trial court for entry of an order authorizing the reformation.

April 2005 section 7520 rate released
The IRS has released the Applicable Federal Rate for the month of April, 2005.  Each month the Service surveys interest rates and publishes the rate that is applicable for gift calculations.  The rate for April is 5.0%.  The rate for March was 4.6%.





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