Episodes

As the this extraordinary year winds down, we all start thinking about 2021 year end planning. In the tax and estate planning world, that might mean quite a lot of potential concerns. Many news sources have inundated you with information about possible changes in estate tax law, income taxation and other new developments. Some commentators add a sense of urgency. If you don’t do something right away, you might lose important opportunities! In this podcast episode, we discuss the importance of ...

Say you need to get authority over your father’s finances because you don’t think he can manage them himself any longer. You know you need a power of attorney (POA). Can’t you just go online, download a financial POA form, and get your dad to sign that? Last week we talked about Arizona’s online health care power of attorney form. It was put on the web by the Arizona Attorney General, and it’s based on the Arizona statute for health care powers of attorney. While we don’t exactly recommend you ...

If you look around, there are a number of places you can download an online health care power of attorney. Some will assure you that they are valid in Arizona. A few are Arizona-specific. For example, the Arizona Attorney General’s office provides a set of online form documents (they call it “life care planning“). Those forms come straight from the Arizona law on advance directives. The packet of documents includes a health care power of attorney, a living will, a mental health care power of at...

A month ago, a podcast listener asked us a series of detailed questions about self-settled SNTs (special needs trusts). We tackle the questions in this episode. Actually, the listener’s questions didn’t specify whether their questions were about self-settled special needs trusts or third-party trusts. And the answers differ quite a bit depending on which trust type is involved. So in two earlier podcast episodes (here and here), we addressed the questions for third-party SNTs. Those trusts hol...

Purchasing Cars with Ashley? Wait: does Fleming & Curti, PLC, have a personal shopper for auto acquisition? Not exactly. But because of our unusual service mix, one of the things we often deal with is setting up transportation for trust beneficiaries and others. That frequently means we use trust (or conservatorship) funds to buy or replace automobiles. Meet Ashley Cooper. Ashley is one of the hard-working and thoughtful Fleming & Curti, PLC, employees, and usually is the main contact for vehi...

In our previous podcast episode we answered listener’s questions about SNTs — special needs trusts. This week we finish up with more questions about SNTs. As we explained in that previous podcast, special needs trusts can be “self-settled” or “third-party.” The difference: follow the money. If the funding came from outside sources, the SNT is usually a third-party trust. If the assets came from the beneficiary herself (or himself), the trust is usually a self-settled SNT. When the trust’s asset...

A listener sent us several questions about SNTs (that is, special needs trusts). We thought the questions were good, and if we talked about them it would give us a chance to explain a number of things about trusts for people with disabilities. Broadly speaking, there are two different “flavors” of SNTs. Sometimes the beneficiary’s assets fund the trust (those are called “self-settled”). Others are “third-party” (that is, the money comes from someone else — a family member’s estate plan, for exa...

What is the scope of duty for an agent on a power of attorney? Are there requirements, and limits? First, language. The person you give authority to in your power of attorney is an agent, or an attorney-in-fact. They are not your “power of attorney”, as that is the name of the document itself. Also, there is a difference between health care powers of attorney and financial (sometimes general, or just durable) powers of attorney. There are also other subdivisions of the power-of-attorney genre....

Trust administration rules are complicated. They involve state law on fiduciary duties. The trustee also has to worry about tax rules — estate tax, income tax, and even generation skipping transfer taxes. Trustees have to provide accounting information, and sometimes some formalities about the style and timing of those requirements. Property management — both for dealing with real estate and valuing, protecting, and distributing personal property — can add challenges. Then there are the interpe...

In late 2019, Congress dramatically changed the rules on IRAs and other retirement accounts inherited from a deceased owner. We talked (and wrote) about the changes at the time. But now it’s time for an update on SECURE, the Act which changed the rules. Lord knows there’s a lot of information available on the SECURE Act. In this podcast episode, we highlight the practical considerations we see clients grappling with every day. Rather than diving deeply into the rules, exceptions and special cas...

Last week we wrote (in our weekly newsletter) about how to modify a trust by restating it into a whole new trust document. This week’s podcast episode gives us a chance to talk about the idea — a sort of Restatements 101 class, if you will. What is a trust restatement? Think of it as a new edition of your trust. Or, as we describe, maybe Your Trust 2.0 (or 4.0, or maybe even 9.0). The basic principle of Restatements 101: the restatement washes away the old trust document altogether, and replace...

It’s unusual for a law firm to employ a property manager. But that’s what Heidi Hauschild does at Fleming & Curti, PLC. Fleming & Curti, PLC, occasionally acts as trustee. Sometimes we are personal representative of an estate, court-appointed conservator, or agent in a durable power of attorney. Because of that role, we frequently have to deal with real estate, vehicles — and occasionally airplanes, race horses and other unusual assets. Join us for this week’s podcast episode. We interviewed H...

Hospice programs exist in pretty much every American community. From their first appearance in this country in the mid-1970s, the movement has grown dramatically. There are two obvious reasons for the growth in hospice programs in the past half-century: The kind of care available, focusing on palliative care, is attractive to many patients at the end of life, and Medicare funding has made hospice available to far more patients. But do patients (and their family members) find the care comfort...

At Fleming & Curti, PLC, we think 529 Plan accounts are a great way to help educate your children and (especially) grandchildren. Coordinating 529 Plan accounts in your estate planning is challenging, and important. There is certainly a big industry of financial planners pushing for you to consider such plans, and we generally approve. But most of the writing about education accounts focuses on selecting among the various options. Less attention focuses on ownership, succession and tax treatmen...

Goodbye Odin Tyvlytter. We miss you terribly. We are very sad to report the death of Odin, one of our canine employees. As a blue merle Cardigan Welsh Corgi, he was hard-working, loyal and reliable. He came to work virtually every day for ten seasons. He might not have been quite as reliable as The Iron Man, but he came close. For the last few years, Odin had mentored Duncan, a Golden Doodle with long legs and a bubbly personality. Duncan now gets to mentor the newest canine addition to the of...

Great! You’ve signed your will, your powers of attorney, and your trust. You have retitled your real estate to the trust (or perhaps to a beneficiary deed). Did you complete your personal property list yet? In this Elder Law Issues podcast episode, we talk about the usefulness of a list of items of tangible property — and recipients for each listed item — in your Arizona estate plan. As always, we limit our discussion to Arizona law, though we do know that other states may have similar provisio...

Have you ever thought about having group meetings as part of your estate planning review? Your lawyer, CPA, financial planner, life insurance professional and others could meet once every year. That way we could all review your current documents, beneficiary designations, tax situation and other issues. Would such a group meeting be a good idea? Of course it would add costs to preparation and maintenance of your estate plan. But it might also help assure that your wishes get carried out. What’...

A family member gave you (or you inherited) a piece of property, which you now want to sell. Do you know how to calculate basis for income tax purposes? And how do you determine what capital gains tax you might owe? Most people understand that there is no tax due on a gift or an inheritance. Unfortunately, that understanding is too simplistic. You might owe some income tax even in cases where there is no estate tax to pay. You might pay income taxes, for instance, when you decide to sell inheri...

Challenges of aging: everyone knows that there are plenty. In this podcast episode, we discuss some of those challenges. What special knowledge do we have about the challenges of aging? Well, for one thing, some of us are aging. But more importantly, we’ve worked with a lot of elderly clients since they weren’t all that elderly. In our role as Tucson elder law attorneys, we see aging up close and over time. We have seen too many clients (and friends) learn about mobility issues, fall risks, an...

Though it is little-known, every county in Arizona has one. But what is the role of the Public Fiduciary in Arizona? No other state has precisely the same kind of position. Other states may have a public guardian, public conservator or public administrator. Some may have two of those offices. One or two states even have all three. But no other state has rolled all three positions into a single public office. In this podcast episode, we review a little bit of the history of the Public Fiduciary...