pdsull

Joined 19 years ago

Karma
548
Submissions
22
Member since
Feb 23
I am an attorney, web developer, and tennis player.
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Recent submissions

Comment · 13 years ago
Chrome flagged this as a potential phishing attack. Anyone else seeing that?
Comment · 14 years ago
Looks great. Any plans to include a coupon code field with this?
Comment · 14 years ago
But it also depends on how the trust is created. I have no idea how TrustEgg establishes the trusts, but many people set up trust funds for their children - but name the child as an alternate beneficiary, after themselves. So, if I set up a fund for my child - the trust fund would be mine until I died. Assuming I was still alive while my kid was at college, the trust fund would be mine and not hers.
Comment · 14 years ago
Trusts allow for advanced estate planning that some can use to minimize tax burden on death. For most of the country, and most of my clients, current exemptions are high enough that this isn't a concern (federally $5 million for individuals, $10 million for a married couple). Here in Montana we don't have a state estate tax, but be sure to check your local laws.

Aside from tax issues, the primary benefit of a trust is the ability to exercise additional control over your property and assets after your death. Wills generally just say who to give how much to. Understandably, many parents think that handing over their entire life savings to a 16 year old is a bad idea. A trust can let you leave someone else (a Trustee) in charge of the money until your child is older and (hopefully) more responsible. One of the largest challenges in most estate planning is that we don't know when you're going to die and we don't know what your assets will look like when you do. In this way, a trust can mitigate one problem of dying with children.

You can exercise a lot more control than that with a Trust, but I find most people are just worried about handing a huge lump sum of assets over to a young kid, and the cocaine fueled spending spree that might follow.

The downsides of a trust vary depending on the type of trust. In its most basic form, you're still looking at additional set up costs. From there, the restrictions can go up to include limited and restricted access to the assets in the trust, administrative overhead, and time to manage the assets. Very few of my clients opt for the trust, even though all those with minor children could benefit from it.

The Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (referenced in this thread) aims to solve some of the problems of a trust by allowing for ad hoc creation at the time of transfer. You don't have to set as much up, since it's mostly statutory. It's a great tool, and (at least in Montana) underused.

Comment · 14 years ago
The feds conduct ongoing child porn investigations, not just passive enforcement. Once someone with CP is found, the feds often try to seize the provider in order to collect information on other offenders, which in turn leads to further arrests/prosecutions. And the cycle continues. I used to think Child Porn was rare. I was wrong.
Comment · 15 years ago
I loved that game. I tried to make a clone with Unity a few years ago but gave up pretty early on. If you ever get something started let me know.
Comment · 19 years ago
BA in Philosophy from the University of Montana and a JD (in May) from the University of Pennsylvania
Comment · 19 years ago
Just seemed like is has/will have some interesting content people might be interested in. I didn't mean it as a replacement.
Comment · 19 years ago
Teller (of Penn and Teller) gives a definition of magic that I really like: "The theatrical linking of a cause with an effect that has no basis in physical reality, but that -- in our hearts -- ought to."

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