Does Artwork Belong in a Charitable Remainder Trust? – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

A charitable remainder trust is a tax-exempt irrevocable trust that is created to decrease taxable income of people, by initially giving income to the beneficiaries of the trust for a set period of time and then donating the rest of the trust funds to a designated charity.

Financial Advisor’s recent article entitled “Putting Art Into Charitable Remainder Trusts” says that people who have valuable artwork or other collectibles that are hard to divide or that their kids do not want, can investigate a charitable remainder trust with an estate planning attorney as an option.

A Charitable Remainder Trust is designed to save asset owners taxes that they would have to pay, if they sold their artworks on the open market. CRTs are also designed so that when they expire, they allow philanthropically inclined individuals help their favorite charitable organizations.

Many people with higher net worth hold about a tenth of their wealth in art and collectibles.  Due to the nature of the assets, the value may be hard to split up among their heirs, or no one heir may want that specific piece of art. A charitable remainder trust gives the art or collectible owner a solution to that issue. The trust will reduce her taxable income, by first dispersing income to the trust beneficiaries for a certain period of time and then the remainder is donated to a charity.

It is important to note that art markets are quirky, and a CRT protects an owner from forcing her into a fire sale, when she or a trustee is trying to divide the estate.

For example, say the parents purchased a number of pieces of artwork on a European vacation and shipped them back to the United States. They have three children, but there is one piece of art that is more valuable than the others. As a result, there was no way to equitably divide the pieces. If they sold the pieces outright, there would be a 28% tax imposed.

However, the parents could instead place the artwork in a charitable remainder trust, get a tax deduction for part of the value, get income from the trust and then give a sum to a selected charity.

The asset can be held in the trust until one owner dies, until both parents pass, or for up to a certain number of years, based on how the trust is set up. Contact an estate planning attorney experienced in charitable planning strategies.

Reference: Financial Advisor (Feb. 21, 2020) “Putting Art Into Charitable Remainder Trusts”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Charitable Giving and Your Estate Plan – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Americans are a country of generous people. We give to organizations that we feel connected to, and we give to charities that we feel are important. We also give to honor our loved ones, to make life better in our communities and to help when disaster strikes.

Most people do not give to charity purely for the tax benefits, but charitable giving has long been a benefit of lowering income taxes during our lifetimes, as well as helping minimize estate taxes when we die, says the article “5 Ways to Incorporate Charitable Giving into Your Estate Plan” from Kiplinger. Therefore, if you are charitably minded, why not achieve the most tax-savings you can? Here are five ways to do this.

Appreciated Stock. Gifts of publicly traded stock that has grown or appreciated in value is a good way to support a charity while you are living. If you sell appreciated stock, you will need to pay capital gains tax on the appreciation. However, if you donate appreciated stock to a charity, you will receive a charitable income tax deduction equal to the full market value of the stock at the time of the gift. That avoids capital gains taxes. You get the benefit on the appreciated amount, without having to sell it. The charity can, if it wants, sell the stock without paying any capital gains taxes, because registered nonprofits are tax exempt.

Charitable Rollovers. If you are older than 70 ½, you may donate up to $100,000 per year to charities directly from your IRA. This is known as a Qualified Charitable Rollover, or a QCD. The QCD counts towards any Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) that you need to take from your IRA annually. Under the recently passed SECURE Act, in the future RMDs must be taken by December 31, 2020, after the account owner celebrates their 72nd birthday. Because RMDs are taxable income, they are taxed at ordinary income rates.

By donating through a QCD, you can support a charity, fulfill your RMD requirement and exclude the amount that you donate from your taxable income. For those who do not need their RMDs, that’s a win-win situation.

Bequest by Will or Revocable Trust. A more traditional way to support a charity, is to leave an amount in your will or revocable trust. The bequest is language in your will or trust that states the amount you want to leave to the charity, clearly identifying the charity you want to receive the funds, and if you want, stating the purpose that you would want the charity to use the funds. An important point: make sure that you use the legally accurate name of the charity to avoid any confusion. This is a common error that causes no many problems for charities.

Consider also giving a donation that can be used for a charity’s “general purpose.” This lets the charity decide where to best allocate your donation, rather than tying the money to a specific program. If you chose to list a specific purpose, meet with the development office or the executive director at the charity to ensure that they are able to fulfill that desire. Otherwise, the charity may need to refuse the bequest.

Name a Charity as the Beneficiary of Retirement Accounts. This can be done by naming the charity as a beneficiary on the account documents. Be sure to use the legally correct name of the charity. The charity will be able to withdraw funds from the retirement account without paying taxes. People who receive funds from retirement accounts pay income tax rates on distributions, but charities do not. You may want to donate retirement account funds to charities, and non-taxable assets to heirs.

Charitable Remainder Trusts. This is a way to help the charity and provide for heirs. Your estate planning attorney would create a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) and names the CRT as the beneficiary of an IRA. A CRT is a “split interest trust,” where a person receives annual payments for the CRT for a set period of time. When the person or charitable organization’s interest in the CRT ends, the remaining funds are distributed to the charity of your choosing. There are very strict rules about how CRTs are structured, including the percentages that the charity must receive. An estate planning attorney will be able to create this for you.

Reference: Kiplinger (March 2, 2020) “5 Ways to Incorporate Charitable Giving into Your Estate Plan”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Alternatives for Stretch IRA Strategies – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

The majority of many people’s wealth is in their IRAs, that is saved from a lifetime of work. Their goal is to leave their IRAs to their children, says a recent article from Think Advisor titled “Three Replacements for Stretch IRAs.” The ability to distribute IRA wealth over years, and even decades, was eliminated with the passage of the SECURE Act.

The purpose of the law was to add an estimated $428 million to the federal budget over the next 10 years. Of the $16.2 billion in revenue provisions, some $15.7 billion is accounted for by eliminating the stretch IRA.

Existing beneficiaries of stretch IRAs will not be affected by the change in the law. But going forward, most IRA heirs—with a few exceptions, including spousal heirs—will have to take their withdrawals within a ten year period of time.

The estate planning legal and financial community is currently scrutinizing the law and looking for strategies that will protect these large accounts from taxes. Here are three estate planning approaches that are emerging as front runners.

Roth conversions. Traditional IRA owners who wished to leave their retirement assets to children may be passing on big tax burdens now that the stretch is gone, especially if beneficiaries themselves are high earners. An alternative is to convert regular IRAs to Roth IRAs and take the tax hit at the time of the conversion.

There is no guarantee that the Roth IRA will never be taxed, but tax rates right now are relatively low. If tax rates go up, it might make converting the Roth IRAs too expensive.

This needs to be balanced with state inheritance taxes. Converting to a Roth could reduce the size of the estate and thereby reduce tax exposure for the state as well.

Life insurance. This is being widely touted as the answer to the loss of the stretch, but like all other methods, it needs to be viewed as part of the entire estate plan. Using distributions from an IRA to pay for a life insurance policy is not a new strategy.

Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT). The IRA could be used to fund a charitable remainder trust. This allows the benefactor to establish an income stream for heirs with part of the IRA assets, with the remainder going to a named charity. The trust can grow assets tax free. There are two different ways to do this: a charitable remainder annuity trust, which distributes a fixed annual annuity and does not allow continued contributions, or a charitable remainder unitrust, which distributes a fixed percentage of the initial assets and does allow continued contributions.

Speak with your estate planning lawyer about what options may work best in your unique situation.

Reference: Think Advisor (Jan. 24, 2020) “Three Replacements for Stretch IRAs”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

How Does the SECURE Act Change Your Estate Plan? – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

The SECURE Act has made big changes to how IRA distributions occur after death. Anyone who owns an IRA, regardless of its size, needs to examine their retirement savings plan and their estate plan to see how these changes will have an impact. The article “SECURE Act New IRA Rules: Change Your Estate Plan” from Forbes explains what the changes are and the steps that need be taken.

Some of the changes include revising wills and trusts which include provisions creating conduit trusts that had been created to hold IRAs and preserve the stretch IRA benefit, while the IRA plan owner was still alive.

Existing conduit trusts may need to be modified before the owner’s death to address how the SECURE Act might undermine the intent of the trust.

Rethinking and possibly completely restructuring the planning for the IRA account may need to occur. This may mean making a charity the beneficiary of the account, and possibly using life insurance or other planning strategies to create a replacement for the value of the charitable donation.

Another alternative may be to pay the IRA balance to a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) on death that will stretch out the distributions to the beneficiary of the CRT over that beneficiary’s lifetime under the CRT rules. Paired with a life insurance trust, this might replace the assets that will ultimately pass to the charity under the CRT rules.

The biggest change in the SECURE Act being examined by estate planning and tax planning attorneys is the loss of the “stretch” IRA for beneficiaries inheriting IRAs after 2019. Most beneficiaries who inherit an IRA after 2019 will be required to completely withdraw all plan assets within ten years of the date of death.

One result of the change of this law will be to generate tax revenues. In the past, the ability to stretch an IRA out over many years, even decades, allowed families to pass wealth across generations with minimal taxes, while the IRAs continued to grow tax tree.

Another interesting change: No withdrawals need be made during that ten-year period, if that is the beneficiary’s wish. However, at the ten-year mark, ALL assets must be withdrawn, and taxes paid.

Under the prior law, the period in which the IRA assets needed to be distributed was based on whether the plan owner died before or after the RMD and the age of the beneficiary.

The deferral of withdrawals and income tax benefits encouraged many IRA owners to bequeath a large IRA balance completely to their heirs. Others, with larger IRAs, used a conduit trust to flow the RMDs to the beneficiary and protect the balance of the plan.

There are exceptions to the 10-year SECURE Act payout rule. Certain “eligible designated beneficiaries” are not required to follow the ten-year rule. They include the surviving spouse, chronically ill heirs and disabled heirs. Minor children are also considered eligible beneficiaries, but when they become legal adults, the ten year distribution rule applies to them. Therefore, by age 28 (ten years after attaining legal majority), they must take all assets from the IRA and pay the taxes as applicable.

The new law and its ramifications are under intense scrutiny by members of the estate planning and elder law bar because of these and other changes. Speak with your estate planning attorney to review your estate plan to ensure that your goals will be achieved in light of these changes.

Reference: Forbes (Dec. 25, 2019) “SECURE Act New IRA Rules: Change Your Estate Plan”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

How Can I Upgrade My Estate Plan? – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Forbes’ recent article, “4 Ways To Improve Your Estate Plan,” suggests that since most people want to plan for a good life and a good retirement, why not plan for a good end of life, too? Here are four ways you can refine your estate plan, protect your assets and create a degree of control and certainty for your family.

  1. Beneficiary Designations. Many types of accounts go directly to heirs, without going through the probate process. This includes life insurance contracts, 401(k)s and IRAs. These accounts can be transferred through beneficiary designations. You should update and review these forms and designations every few years, especially after major life events like divorce, marriage or the birth or adoption of children or grandchildren.
  2. Life Insurance. A main objective of life insurance is to protect against the loss of income, in the event of an individual’s untimely death. The most important time to have life insurance is while you’re working and supporting a family with your income. Life insurance can provide much needed cash flow and liquidity for estates that might be subject to estate taxes or that have lots of illiquid assets, like family businesses, farms, artwork or collectibles.
  3. Consider a Trust. In some situations, creating a trust to shelter or control assets is a good idea. There are two main types of trusts: revocable and irrevocable. You can fund revocable trusts with assets and still use the assets now, without changing their income tax nature. This can be an effective way to pass on assets outside of probate and allow a trustee to manage assets for their beneficiaries. An irrevocable trust can be a way to provide protection from creditors, separate assets from the annual tax liability of the original owner and even help reduce estate taxes in some situations.
  4. Charitable Giving. With charitable giving as part of an estate plan, you can make outright gifts to charities or set up a charitable remainder annuity trust (CRAT) to provide income to a surviving spouse, with the remainder going to the charity.

Your attorney will tell you that your estate plan is unique to your situation. A big part of an estate plan is about protecting your family, making sure assets pass smoothly to your designated heirs and eliminating stress for your loved ones.

Reference: Forbes (November 6, 2019) “4 Ways To Improve Your Estate Plan”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

How a Charitable Remainder Trust Works – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

A couple lives well on their incomes, but the biggest asset they own is a tract of unimproved real estate that the wife received from her parents many years ago. The land was part of the family’s farm and is located in prime area that is growing in value.

The couple is looking for ways to supplement their retirement income, which is based solely on their retirement accounts.

What can they do to generate retirement income and not have to pay a significant proportion of their profit in capital gains? The solution is presented in the article “Using Charitable Trusts in Your Retirement Planning” from Richardland Source.

One strategy would be to establish a Charitable Remainder Trust or CRT. The wife would transfer the land to an irrevocable trust created to provide lifetime payments to her and her husband. At the death of the surviving spouse, the trust property would be transferred to a charitable organization named in the wife’s trust agreement.

Using the CRT, the trustee can sell the trust property and reinvest the proceeds without having to pay any immediate tax on the gain. The couple would have more money for retirement than if they simply sold the land and invested the proceeds. They also have the option of investing their tax savings outside of the trust to produce additional income.

The CRT can be either an annuity trust or a unitrust. The type of CRT used will determine how payments from the trust are calculated. If a Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT) is chosen, the couple will receive annual payments of a set percentage of the trust’s initial fair market value. The percentage will need to be at least 5% and may not be more than 50%.

If they choose a Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT), they would receive an annual income based on the fair market value of the trust property, which is revalued each year. That percentage must be at least 5% and not more than 50%.

These are complex legal strategies that need to be considered in tandem with an overall estate and tax plan. Speak with an experienced estate planning attorney to learn if using CRTs would be a good strategy for you and your family.

Reference: Richardland Source (October 28, 2019) “Using Charitable Trusts in Your Retirement Planning”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Estate Planning Can Solve Problems Before They Happen – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Creating an estate plan, with the help of an experienced estate planning attorney, can help people gain clarity on larger issues like who should inherit the family home, and small details like what to do with the personal items that none of the children want.

Until you go through the process of mapping out a plan, these questions can remain unanswered. However, according the East Idaho Business Journal, “Estate plans can help you answer questions about the future.”

Let’s look at some of these questions:

What will happen to my children when I die? You hope that you’ll live a long and happy life and that you’ll get to see your children grow up and have families of their own. However, what if you don’t? A will is used to name a guardian to take care of your children if their parents are not alive. Some people also use their wills to name a “conservator.” That’s the person who is responsible for the assets that any minor children might inherit.

Will my family fight over their inheritance? Without an estate plan, that’s a distinct possibility. When an estate goes through probate, it is a public process. Relatives and creditors can both gain access to your records and could challenge your will. Many people use and “fund” revocable living trusts to place assets outside of the will and to avoid the probate process entirely.

Who will take care of my finances, if I’m too sick? Estate planning includes documents like a durable power of attorney, which allows a person you name (before becoming incapacitated) to take charge of your financial affairs. Speak with your estate planning attorney about also having a medical power of attorney. This lets someone else handle health care decisions on your behalf.

Should I be generous to charities or leave all my assets to my family? That’s a very personal question. Unless you have significant wealth, chances are you will leave most of your assets to family members. However, giving to charity could be a part of your legacy, whether you are giving a large or small amount. It may give your children a valuable lesson about what should happen to a lifetime of work and saving.

One way of giving, is to establish a charitable lead trust. This provides financial support to a charity (or charities) of choice for a period of time with the remaining assets eventually going to family members. There is also the charitable remainder trust, which provides a steady stream of income for family members for a certain term of the trust. The remaining assets are then transferred to one or more charitable organizations.

Careful estate planning can help answer many worrisome questions. Just keep in mind that these are complex issues that are best addressed with the help of an experienced estate planning attorney.

Reference: East Idaho Business Journal (June 25, 2019) “Estate plans can help you answer questions about the future.”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Stretch IRA May be Disappearing Soon – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Short of calling your representatives in Congress and hollering, there’s not much any of us can do about a proposed change to the rules that govern IRAs, reports nj.com in the article “Your kid’s inheritance could take a giant tax hit if these bills become law. Thanks, Congress.”

For years, non-spouse beneficiaries who inherit IRAs have had the ability to stretch out required distributions over their lifetimes. That meant that inherited IRAs could stay safe and sound out of the IRS’s reach, except for annual distributions that were quite small. If a grandchild inherited the IRA, the wealth stretched even further.

Depending on the final details of the legislation, the only people who will be able stretch an IRA will be spouses.

Current rules require non-spouse beneficiaries to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) every year over the course of their life expectancy, as per the IRS life expectancy tables. Because they are taken over the lifetime of a younger beneficiary, they can be small. This means the impact of the distribution on the individual’s income taxes are minimal and the IRA can grow tax deferred over a long period of time.

Congress is looking for revenue and the wealth of Americans in IRA accounts is in their sight lines.

First, the House passed the SECURE Act, which says that beneficiaries must completely empty their inherited IRAs within 10 years of ownership. The Senate then passed the RESA Act, which is a little different. It would allow a stretch for the first $450,000 of aggregated IRAs, then anything over that would have to be distributed within five years.

Both bills call for changes to apply to inherited IRAs and inherited Roth IRAs for deaths after December 31, 2019. What’s the bottom line? The Joint Committee on Taxation expects that these changes, if they become law, will yield $15.7 billion—with a “B”—in additional tax revenue through 2029.

The government would eventually get this money anyway, but this speeds things up considerably.

Let’s compare and contrast. An 80-year old woman has a traditional IRA worth $1 million. She dies and her 55-year-old daughter is the primary beneficiary. Under the current rules, the daughter’s first RMD is roughly $35,000. If the 25-year-old granddaughter was the beneficiary, the RMD would be roughly $18,000.

If the account earns an average of 5% annually, under the current rule, the granddaughter would have distributions of some $220,000 over ten years. If she had ten years to take the money out, she’d have about $1.3 million in distribution. Under the current rule, the account would have a $1.3 million balance after ten years, since the principal would continue to appreciate. Under the proposed rules, after ten years, it would be zeroed out.

The forced larger distributions will push heirs into higher income tax brackets. That will be followed by increased Medicare premiums, as heirs retire with higher income. Add to that: higher capital gains rate, from as low as zero to as high as 20%. If that’s not bad enough, it could also trigger the 3.8% net Investment Income tax.

One option is to move funds from a regular IRA to a Roth IRA, assuming the investor meets all the requirements to do so. The Roth IRA distributions would not be taxable (unless those laws change) but that also requires the current owner to pay taxes on funds moved to the Roth IRA.

Another option is to consider a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) that names a charity as the IRA beneficiary. Upon the death of the owner, the IRA is distributed to the CRT, and the IRA owner’s heir would receive a fixed percentage of the CRT’s value for the remainder of their lives. When the heir dies, the money in the CRT goes to a charity or charities designated by the IRA owner, when the trust was created.

For now, these are proposed pieces of legislation, but chances are good they will be passed soon. Now is a good time to meet with your estate planning attorney to do what you can to protect your IRA and your children’s inheritance.

Reference: nj.com (June 10, 2019) “Your kid’s inheritance could take a giant tax hit if these bills become law. Thanks, Congress”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

What You Need to Know about Trusts for Estate Planning – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

There are many different kinds of trusts used to accomplish a wide variety of purposes in creating an estate plan. Some are created by the operation of a will, and they are known as testamentary trusts—meaning that they came to be via the last will and testament. That’s just the start of a thorough look at trusts offered in the article “ON THE MONEY: A look at different types of trusts” from the Aiken Standard.

Another way to view trusts is in two categories: revocable or irrevocable. As the names imply, the revocable trust can be changed, and the irrevocable trust usually cannot be changed.

A testamentary trust is a revocable trust, since it may be changed during the life of the grantor. However, upon the death of the grantor, it becomes irrevocable.

In most instances, a revocable trust is managed for the benefit of the grantor, although the grantor also retains important rights over the trust during her or his lifetime. The rights of the grantor include the ability to instruct the trustee to distribute any of the assets in the trust to someone, the right to make changes to the trust and the right to terminate the trust at any time.

If the grantor becomes incapacitated, however, and cannot manage her or his finances, then the provisions in the trust document usually give the trustee the power to make discretionary distributions of income and principal to the grantor and, depending upon how the trust is created, to the grantor’s family.

Note that distributions from a living trust to a beneficiary other than the grantor, may be subject to gift taxes. Those are paid by the grantor. In 2019, the annual gift tax exclusion is $15,000. Therefore, if the distribution is under that level, no gift taxes need to be filed or paid.

When the grantor dies, the trust property is distributed to beneficiaries, as directed by the trust agreement.

Irrevocable trusts are established by a grantor and cannot be amended without the approval of the trustee and the beneficiaries of the trust. The major reason for creating such a trust in the past was to create estate and income tax advantages. However, the increase in the federal estate tax exemption means that a single individual’s estate won’t have to pay taxes, if the value of their assets is less than $11.4 million ($22.8 million for a married couple).

Once an irrevocable trust is established and assets are placed in it, those assets are not part of the grantor’s taxable estate, and trust earnings are not reported as income to the grantor.

The downside of an irrevocable trust is that the transfer of assets into the trust may be subject to gift taxes, if the amount that is transferred is greater than $15,000 multiplied by the number of trust beneficiaries. However, depending upon the size of the grantor’s estate, larger amounts may be transferred into an irrevocable trust without any gift tax liability to the grantor, if the synchronization between gift taxes and estate taxes is properly done. This is a complex strategy that requires an experienced trust and estate attorney.

Trusts are also used to address charitable giving and generating current income. These trusts are known as Charitable Remainder Trusts and are irrevocable in nature. There is a current beneficiary who is either the donor or another named individual and a remainder beneficiary, which is a qualified charitable organization. The trust document provides that the named beneficiary receives an income stream from the income produced by the trust assets, and when the grantor dies, the remaining assets of the trust pass to the charity.

Speak with your estate planning attorney about how trusts might be a valuable part of your estate plan. If your estate plan has not been reviewed since the new tax law was passed, there may be certain opportunities that you are missing.

Reference: Aiken Standard (May 17, 2019) “ON THE MONEY: A look at different types of trusts”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys