How to Obtain Beneficiary Assent when Preparing Accounts for Allowance
In the process of closing the decedent’s estate, while preparing accounts for allowance by the probate court, you will need to obtain the assent (a form of written agreement to the account) of each interested [more…]
How to Submit a Trust’s Final Income Tax Returns
You can’t walk away from your duties as trustee until and unless you’ve filed a final Form 1041, U.S. Income Tax Return for Estates and Trusts. Before terminating the trust, you will need to ensure that [more…]
Estate Tax Closing Letters and Real Estate Releases of Lien
To close the decedent’s estate, the executor must obtain tax closing letters and releases of lien for real estate. If you filed a Form 706 tax return, you must complete estate tax closing letters before [more…]
How to Liquidate an Estate’s Securities and Real Estate
Liquidating — distributing or selling — estate assets is one of the primary responsibilities of an estate administrator. Liquidation can help to pay the estate’s debts and expenses and make distributing [more…]
What Are Key Bond Terms for a Trust?
Investing in bonds can be one of the safest and easiest ways to invest, yet many people shy away from these investments because they may not understand all the words used in their descriptions. This article [more…]
How to Diversify Mutual Funds for a Trust
In a mutual fund, a group of like-minded investors pool their money, hire an advisor, and allow the advisor to invest the pooled cash in a way that’s been determined by the investors. In exchange for the [more…]
How to Satisfy Cash on Hand Needs for a Trust
As much as you want to maximize the income being earned by the trust’s principal, you need to keep some cash on hand at all times for both expected and unexpected expenses. Expected expenses include scheduled [more…]
How to Manage Real Estate for a Trust
Often, the grantor’s residence may end up in the trust, either during lifetime or after the grantor’s death. Or, the grantor may have held interests in either residential or commercial real estate, either [more…]
How to Manage Small Business Stocks for a Trust
Whether a trust receives small business stock during the grantor’s lifetime or as part of the decedent’s estate rolled into the trust after death, you may find yourself holding a substantial interest in [more…]
How to Transfer Real Estate into a Trust
A grantor may choose to transfer real property into a trust. For trustees, funding a trust with real estate involves transferring the property’s title, drafting a new deed and getting it signed, and assuming [more…]
How to Fund a Trust with Life Insurance
Life insurance policies come in many flavors, and they guarantee a reasonably large cash payout down the road for a relatively small investment now. A life insurance policy can fund a trust that eventually [more…]
How to Fund a Trust after a Grantor’s Death
Often, trusts are created during the grantor’s lifetime, but they aren’t funded until after the grantor dies. If you’re a trustee of such a trust, there are certain steps to take to transfer assets into [more…]
How to Diversify Stocks for a Trust
Investing in the stock market is a popular way to produce income from trust principal for the trust’s income beneficiaries. Stocks, sometimes referred to as equities, are ownership interests in corporations [more…]
How to Distribute from a Trust with Age Provisions
Many trusts contain age provisions that distribute trust income and/or principal to the trust’s beneficiaries only when they reach certain ages. The administrator of an estate must honor the specific provisions [more…]
How to Handle Beneficiary Requests for Additional Trust Distributions
As the administrator of a trust, you may receive requests from beneficiaries for additional distributions. As trustee, you can accept or decline these requests at your discretion. When making these decisions [more…]
How to Make Discretionary Distributions of Trust Funds
Trust instruments usually give some guidance regarding what sorts of discretionary distributions a trustee can make to beneficiaries. Discretionary powers may be narrowly prescribed in the trust instrument [more…]
How to Prepare a Trust’s Initial Inventory
The initial inventory is the starting point of a trust’s history, showing each asset’s cost basisas the grantor acquires it. The trustee must collect and sort this data for the property funding the trust [more…]
How to Compile Records of Trust Transactions
As trustee, tracking all transactions in and out of the trust account can help in many ways. Record the transaction every time you buy or sell a security, receive interest or dividend payments, or make [more…]
How to Invest in Bonds for a Trust
Bonds are pieces of loans, packaged by a corporation or a government as investment product. When you purchase a bond, you’re purchasing a piece of someone else’s debt. In exchange for the money you’re [more…]
How to Appraise a Decedent’s Real Estate Holdings
As the executor of an estate, you must value the estate’s real estate holdings at the time of the decedent’s death. You may be able to use the real estate assessment as the value at the date of death. [more…]
How to Appraise an Estate’s Intangible Assets
As the executor of an estate, you must value the estate’s intangible property at the time of the decedent’s death. First compile a complete list of the estate’s intangible property, such as bank and brokerage [more…]
How to Appraise an Estate’s Tangible Assets
As the administrator of an estate, you need to determine the value of the estate’s tangible assets at the time of the decedent’s death. For some tangible assets, you may conduct research to determine the [more…]
Personal and Household Property in Trusts
A grantor may own a revocable or irrevocable trust. The difference between the two types of trusts determines whether the grantor should transfer personal and household property into it. [more…]
How to Complete Schedule C for Estate Form 706
An estate administrator should report assets like mortgages, cash, and promissory notes on Schedule C: Mortgages, Notes, and Cash when filing tax Form 706. [more…]
How to Complete Schedule B for Estate Form 706
An estate’s administrator must complete Schedule B: Stocks and Bonds when filing Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return [more…]
