Daniel Craig is a prominent actor, one of the most recent incarnations of the James Bond franchise. Mr. Craig made headlines recently with his announcement that he finds that “inheritance is distasteful.” He plans to give little if anything to his children and the rest to charity. Shocking. Positively shocking? No, a charitable disposition is
Trust & Estates
Trusts, Wyoming ranches, and Walt Disney. Part 2
Last week we introduced the story of a battle over a portion of the Walt Disney fortune. His grandson is challenging the sale of a ranch in Wyoming by the trustees of a family trust. The article reporting the story contained a number of questionable statements that might be worth reviewing if only to illustrate…
Trusts, Wyoming ranches, and Walt Disney. Part 1
Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color was a feature (albeit not in color) of my Sunday evenings as a boy (although not as much as Wild Kingdom and Bonanza). This blog entry concerns the Disney fortune and the problems that frequently arise in the generations that follow the demise of the creator of the great…
Guardianships and Conservatorships – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Most of us know the name “Britney Spears” from her long show business career, which began when she was a child. By the time she was twelve years old, she starred in The Mickey Mouse Club. She later catapulted to stardom as a “pop” star. Most of us are equally aware that Ms. Spears suffered…
The Next Generation, Managing Inherited Wealth, or: Teach Your Children Well
A story is told about a conversation between two great writers on the nature of wealth. F. Scott Fitzgerald, very enamored of the leisure class, is reputed to have said to Ernest Hemingway: “The rich are different from you and me.” In reply, Hemingway said: “Yes, they have more money.” And then there is the…
Frontiers of Charitable Giving: Congress May Curb Abuses of This Charitable Deduction Used by the Wealthy
I would rather have it said, ‘He lived usefully,’ than, ‘He died rich.’
- Benjamin Franklin
Many people erroneously ascribe to Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, an ideological hostility to taxation that he did not in fact espouse. In his time, he would have been known as a “moral philosopher,” and his first work…
The Week in Review
Here is a potpourri (and you thought that was just a Jeopardy category) of recent articles touching on the world of Trusts and Estates. Hey, you can’t expect a musical entry every week.
From Forbes:
Estate Tax Nightmare: Three Weddings, Two Funerals, And A Mexican Divorce:
“. . .this week’s topic offers a critical…
General Obligations Law Article 15 Gets Some Teeth
In this week’s New York Trusts and Estates blog entry, Sally M. Donahue discusses one of the many recent changes to the law regarding statutory short form Powers of Attorney, that change being the possible award of monetary damages, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs against a third party who is found to have acted unreasonably…
The new Power of Attorney is finally here!
The new Power of Attorney statute is in effect, as of June 13, 2021. Signed into law late last year, it has been the subject of intense study by trusts and estates attorneys (and many others as well). The new Power of Attorney law makes many substantial changes to the old law. The old law,…
The Human Touch. There are green books and then there are green books.
The government just issued its “Green Book,” the summary of the President’s proposed changes to the tax laws. Perhaps the recent leaks from the IRS about the income taxes paid by some of our wealthiest citizens will have an impact on these proposals.
From Wealth Management, an article (see link below) that is a comprehensive…