Decedent lived with neighbors due to health issues, and they cared for him, but claims for the value of the neighbors’ services were denied as requiring speculation as to the intent of the decedent, the time spent by the neighbors, or what rate of compensation to apply, but claims for moneys spent by the neighbors in cleaning up the decedent’s property were allowed both under the doctrine of unjust enrichment and because there was disinterested testimony that the decedent approved of the expenses. Ackerman Estate, 10 Fid.Rep.3d 137 (Monroe O.C. 2020).
Appeal from probate filed more than one year after the grant of letters will be dismissed when the petitioner received a notice of estate administration and does not allege fraud upon the court or any other exception to the one year statute of limitations. Mase Estate, 10 Fid.Rep.3d 120 (Lycoming O.C. 2020).
A beneficiary who is entitled to an annuity of $2,400 each year for life from a trust did not have have a “direct, immediate and substantial” interest in transactions reported in the trustee’s account covering a period during which the trust fund increased from about $5.56 million to about $73 million and so did not have standing to object to those transactions or to petition for the appointment of a co-trustee, but did have standing to object to the division of the trust into separate trusts, only one of which would be used to pay the annuity. Trust under Will of Augustus T. Ashton, Deceased, Dated January 20, 1950, 233 A.3d 869, 2020 PA Super 130 (6/3/2020), rev’d in part, ___ Pa. ___, ___ A.3d ___, 36 EAP 2020 (Pa. 10/4/2021), (with concurrence by Wecht, J.), and aff’g in part, No. 1039 ST of 1952 (Philadelphia O.C. 2/25/2019).
The article “Low-Interest Estate Planning Strategies” described several estate planning strategies that should be considered now that interest rates have reached record lows. One of the strategies that is described in the article is a “long-term GRAT,” meaning a GRAT for a term of 50 to 100 years or more.
A new calculator has been added to Webcalculators to illustrate the benefits of that kind of trust, which can be used to a exclude significant portion of the assets of the GRAT from the grantor’s gross estate. Here is a sample of the output from the calculator, and the overview of the calculators is below:
A new calculation has been added to Webcalculators to determine the portion of trust that is included in the grantor’s gross estate for federal estate tax purposes when the grantor has retained an annuity interest or unitrust interest (such as a GRAT, CRAT, or CRUT), the overview for which is below:
My Webcalculators service has a new feature, which is that emails are now being sent out monthly with new federal rates under IRC sections 1274 and 7520 as soon as those new rates are announced by the Internal Revenue Service. Those rates are used in calculations for different kinds of estate planning strategies and estate administration valuations. See “Low-Interest Estate Planning Strategies” for some comments on the effects of the historically low interest rates that were announced on Friday.
It will be necessary to register at the Webcalculators site to receive these emails, but registration is free. (Webcalculators is a subscription service, but some features require only the free registration, including the emails announcing new rates.)
Charts of current and historical applicable federal rates and §7520 rates will continue to be maintained on this site, but it was found to be difficult to create emails to announce new rates, and it was not clear whether all subscribers to this site would want to get these emails, which is why it was decided to send the emails through Webcalculators.
Webcalculators registration also allows free access to the following calculators:
- Annuity factors which can be determined under tables published by the IRS under IRC §7520 (but not factors requiring custom calculations). So a calculation requiring a two-life factor is free, but a calculation for three lives, or the shorter of a term of years and two lives, requires a subscription.
- Income and remainder factors which can be determined under tables published by the IRS. (See comments about annuity factors, above.)
- Unitrust factors which can be determined under tables published by the IRS. (See comments about annuity factors, above.)
- Interest on unpaid federal taxes (which compounds daily).
- Interest on unpaid Pennsylvania taxes (which is simple interest).
- Weighted average maturities (which is needed for loans that are amortized or pay principal in installments in order to determine whether short-term, mid-term, or long-term federal rates should apply).
The Internal Revenue Service has announced federal rates for the month of June that will be the lowest in the histories of sections 1274 and 7520 of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”). The §7520 rate, which is used to value…
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The Orphans’ Court did not have jurisdiction under 20 Pa.C.S. § 3521 to reopen the adjudication of the informal account of the guardian of the estate of a minor merely because of allegations that the investments of the guardian underperformed. In re: Estate of Ryan Wagner, a Minor, 2020 PA Super 112 (5/11/2020).
[9/28/2020 Update: Final regulations have been adopted and a section has been added at the end of this article briefly describing the few differences between the proposed and final regulations.] The Internal Revenue Service has published proposed regulations on the…
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Dan Evans (dan@evans-legal.com)