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The IRS has quietly changed the rules around taxes on inheritances, putting Americans in danger of being caught out if they try to transfer assets to their children. The agency has curbed the tax break on a particular kind of trust often used to minimize estate taxes. Prior to the new instruction, it was unclear what the tax policies were around assets passing to beneficiaries through an irrevocable trust. But the Revenue Ruling 2023-2 has confirmed that these trusts will now be subject to capital gains tax, which will have a substantial impact on estate planning for Americans

The people I work for took there property into a trust and named their children as trustees. They rent the property from the trust. Essentially it is a big tax evasion of sorts. I believe they are set to renegotiate my contract. My question is this, when something goes into trust or a business is bought or taken over, what obligation, if any, do the new holder/owners/operators have to honor old contracts? Can they boot us out? Thanks

The question raised by NBA’s Stephen A. Smith, Spike Lee, and several NBA players, current and past, is “Why is it taking so long to fire Donald Sterling?” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was so strong and strident in his announcement that steps would be taken “immediately” to do just that. There was no ambiguity about whether they were going to fire Sterling for his racist comments against African Americans. It is a done deal. Commissioner Silver surely would not have made such a profound announcement without having consulted the other NBA owners. So why hasn’t the first shoe dropped? Like...

The Firearms Coalition has provided an alert about the proposed BATFE Obama administration rules.  The proposed rules make the application for trusts and companies to obtain federal tax stamps for gun mufflers (silencers, suppressors), short barreled rifles and shotguns, full-auto guns and a few other items, considerably more convoluted. The Firearms Coaliton supplied a sample comment in the article on ammoland to use as reference for comments, which can be made here.   I found the proposed rule change comment section with a search for NFA trust at that link, and by clicking on the Comment Now button  on the...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker John Boehner says he "absolutely" trusts President Barack Obama - not that they don't have their differences.</p> <p>Boehner tells ABC's "This Week" that the two have a good relationship and that they're "open with each other ... honest with each other." But the Ohio lawmaker says they're trying to bridge some big differences.</p>

Herzfeld & Rubin Accused of Malpractice, Breach of TrustIs Herzfeld & Rubin denying heart patient life saving medicine?By Jonathan Ariel Israel News AgencyTel Aviv --- May 5, 2012 ... An Israeli-American citizen has accused Herzfeld & Rubin, a New York law firm of malpractice - withholding payment of life saving heart medicine, allowing an eviction to take place and willfully, maliciously abusing and defrauding a Trust Fund that Herzfeld & Rubin had authored for him in accordance with the instructions of his late father Bernard Leyden. Herzfeld & Rubin describes itself as "a full service international law firm, headquartered in...

Hospitals are running out of vital drugs to treat high blood pressure, asthma and Parkinson’s disease because they are being sold abroad. At least 19 NHS trusts across England have written to the Department of Health since September to warn of shortages, according to figures obtained by Labour MP Keith Vaz. There are concerns that drugs manufactured in Britain, meant for NHS patients, are being sold to EU countries by wholesalers and pharmacists. (Snip) Although the practice is not illegal, the Government has condemned it as unethical and there are concerns that patients are being put at risk.

BOSTON (AP) — With only eight days to live, a wealthy, ailing Massachusetts merchant wrote in his will 351 years ago that he was leaving a spectacular 35-acre seafront property for the benefit of public school children, decreeing the land should never be sold or wasted. The dying wish of William Payne, one of the state's earliest settlers, created the nation's oldest charitable trust and eventually led tenants to build 167 cottages — most of them used by summer vacationers — on the land he left for the seaside city of Ipswich. The rent money has generated some $2.4 million...

Well well well.... what do we have here? JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s EMC Mortgage, facing homeowner lawsuits over foreclosures, was sued by the trustee of a mortgage portfolio for refusing to turn over documents detailing the quality of loans bought by the trust. Who sued them? Wells Fargo! The issue is that EMC is refusing to turn over loan files. Wait a second.... where's EMC's role in this? We're gonna have problems here I think. Shouldn't Wells have these documents already? Probably - unless they had a custodial agreement with EMC. And if they did, what's EMC's excuse? They don't...

(IsraelNN.com) The Palestinian Authority (PA) government this week approved the construction of an international airport in the area of Al Bukieh, between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. The decision is part of the implementation of a PA plan to create the institutions of an independent state which they intend to declare in two years' time. Ghasan El-Khatib, Head of the Press Bureau in the PA, told Al Hayyat newspaper that an official committee prepared a detailed report on a planned airport with four runways for the PA.

Labor union trusts that provide a variety of benefits for workers must disclose detailed financial information under new federal rules designed to root out corruption, officials said Monday. In announcing the requirement, the U.S. Labor Department cited several cases in recent years of union officers stealing from trusts established for retirement funds, job training and disaster relief. It was not immediately clear how the rules might apply to a Service Employees International Union local in Los Angeles, whose spending practices are the subject of a criminal investigation. The United Long-Term Care Workers has a related health trust and worker-training charity...

For more than 75 years the Hunt family has meant big money in Big D, and often big news, too. Eccentric oilman H.L. Hunt built the world's largest fortune and secretly supported three families at the same time. His children built Reunion Tower and the Mansion on Turtle Creek, coined the term "Super Bowl," infamously failed to corner the silver market, and recently signed an eyebrow-raising oil deal in Iraq. But the branch of his family led by his eldest daughter, Margaret Hunt Hill, lived quietly. She flew coach, attended charity galas and became the glue that held the family...

Over the next 50 years, it's expected that $45 trillion will be transferred to heirs and charities via estates - the largest wealth transfer in history. How much of it is siphoned by trustees or lost to estate taxes, administrative fees, lawyers' fees, appraiser fees, accountants' fees or poor investment acumen surely will be a record, as well. Estate planning, in particular trusts and their administration by financial institutions, can be mind-numbingly complex. Talk of them turns on the unpleasant subject of death. But unless consumers remain vigilant - and technology is employed for checks and balances - assets will...

Wealth, prestige gone, a lawyer faces prison term He pleaded guilty to fraud while bilking the trust he was overseeing of $52 million Mark Avery, San Francisco-born son of one of the nation's pre-eminent trust attorneys, was one of 14 lawyers fired in 1996 by a then-incoming San Francisco district attorney intent on making room for his own people. Avery, now 48, rebuilt his life in Alaska, first working as a prosecutor in Anchorage and then prospering as he took over his late father's role as a trust attorney. But the wealth and prestige he built along the way were...

After releasing a partial return of the family taxes, we were told that Teresa Heinz-Kerry's tax return indicated a paid rate of about 12% of income.

One of the major scandals in the field of charitable giving is the way in which a foundation set up to serve certain purposes has the money squandered by disloyal foundation executives on causes the original donors would have despised. Now there are indications that the Pew Charitable Trusts may be heading in this direction. The Trusts were derived from the fortune amassed by that crusty old Pennsylvanian, the late Joe Pew, and created by his children. Currently, the Charitable Trusts' assets total $4.1 billion, making the foundation one of the 10 largest in the country. Until recently, the Trusts...

Opposition Swamps Sweeping Farmland BillA barrage of final-hour opposition overcame the most sweeping California farmland protection bill in a generation, scuttling it on the brink of its first hearing. Builders, real estate agents and California cities mounted vigorous opposition in recent days to SB-898l by state Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, that would have created some of the nation’s toughest barriers to growth on millions of acres of the state’s best farmland. California reportedly paves over 50,000 acres of irrigated farmland yearly. The bill called for new growth restrictions on 8.1 million acres until 2015, and portrayed farmland preservation as...

By Tom Holt Between Sierra Club-style lobbyists for costly environmental regulation and property-rights advocates, do land trusts such as The Nature Conservancy, or TNC, offer a compromise "third way" - a means to achieve environmental goals using market-based mechanisms? Too many Republicans and free-market advocates have fooled themselves into believing so. Unfortunately, there is a huge gap between the market-based theory of land trusts and the reality of taxpayer and landowner abuses that occur routinely in land-trust practice. Land trusts, in theory, have appeal, if one disregards the significant fact that trusts exist to remove property from commerce. Trusts acquire,...