Don't Ask - Don't Tell

Resorting again to advice columns for material. In “Ask Carolyn,” a reader with three children including a son with ADHD who has threatened violence is miffed that her pregnant sister has not chosen her to be the guardian of her forthcoming child.  The sister has continued to agree to serve as the guardian for the reader’s three children.  The reader believes that her sister is judging her parenting skills even though “every single day is a struggle for her due to her son.”

A few poignant and sad points:

1.  The pregnant sister has two likely concerns about the reader - the ability of her sister to handle another child when “every single day is a struggle” and the possibility of physical harm to her child from his cousin.

2.  I always advise my clients to discuss guardianship with the potential guardians.  I do not advise telling someone that they are not the guardian because of the possibility of unnecessarily bruised feelings for a scenario that might never arise.

3.   There is a never right answer on the guardianship question - there is merely a best answer or least worse answer.  No one will raise your child the same way you would (nor will someone clean your house like you or cut your grass the way you would), but you have to settle for the best option considering all factors such as location, parenting style, educational beliefs, and demographics.  Not having a child raised by a family with a potentially violent child who causes his mother to struggle every day is an easy decision to make.  

4. I love people who think about estate planning while they are pregnant.

Photo Credit:  Nick Galifianakis/For The Washington Post)

License:  Fair Use/Education

 

Rules Are For the Little People

In an unusual moment of sanity, the federal government announced on Friday that it would stop seizing the tax refunds of taxpayers whose parents owed money to Social Security from years ago.  This has been governmental policy since late 2008.  In typical bureaucratic efficiency, the IRS would send letters to addresses that had not been used in 40 years or would inexplicably be unable to contact someone who had lived at the same address for 40 years.  In its defense, the IRS does not pass these inane laws, it merely enforces what Congress has passed.

Three quick points:

1.  Typically debts die with a person and the heirs of an individual are not liable for his debts.  This is an exception. 

2.  If you want to point fingers for this law punishing innocent taxpayers for the alleged sins of their parents, point to Todd Platts, a former Republican Congressman; a Democratic House and Senate in 2008; and a legislative process that allows crap like this to get inserted into a Farm Bill.

3.  It is nice of the WaPo to take a breath from its anti-Trump obsession and to focus on the injustice caused by this process.  

Photo Credit:  Evelyn Hockstein for the Washington Post
License:  Fair Use/Education

Meanest Man Begets Mean Daughter

Sam Huff is an NFL Hall of Fame linebacker who played for the NY Giants and Washington Redskins. He was known as the Meanest Man in the NFL during the 1960's. He is long divorced,has lived with Carol Holden for nearly 30 years, and now suffers from dementia. His daughter picked him up one morning in late March to take him to a dentist appointment and has not returned him to his home. Some might call this kidnapping. The daughter then took him to an attorney to have herself appointed as his health care decision maker (she was already his financial decision maker) and her mother, Huff's ex--wife, as the alternate. She also asked a court to appoint her as his guardian.

Several points:

1. The prior structure of Huff's health care and financial powers of attorneys was what I usually recommend in a second marriage situation - the spouse/partner can make the medical decisions but the child can make the financial decisions.

2. The validity of Huff's new health care power of attorney is certainly questionable given his dementia diagnosis which is further evidenced by him naming his elderly, ex-wife as his alternate decision maker.

3. I am always disappointed at the vitriol that children have towards the second spouse/partner of their parents no matter how long they have been together.

4. It is no surprise that the Meanest Man in the NFL would would have an incredibly mean daughter.

The Nest

Gosh, times are slow in the newsworthy estates and trusts area, except for the conga line of people claiming to be heirs of Prince. Reluctantly resorting to fiction for material, "The Nest" by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney is on many best books of summer lists. It has several estate planning lessons which can be gleaned from the following plot facts (all of which are in the first 40 pages so hopefully I not spoiling anything for anyone who wants to read the book). 

A father created a trust for his four children. The trust was to be distributed when the youngest child reached the age of 40. His wife had the power to invade the trust in the event the children needed the funds earlier. One of the children had a power of attorney from his husband which allowed him to mortgage their vacation property without the husband knowing about the mortgage (trust me, I got the pronouns correct). Another child had a legal predicament which resulted in his mother lending him the entire proceeds of the trust to bail him out and hoping that he would re-pay the amount (called "the nest" by his siblings). 

Points to be learned: 

1. One should never give a power of attorney to a non-aged spouse unless it is contingent on disability. The potential for abuse is too great otherwise. 

2. This trust should have divided into separate shares either at the conception or when the children were in their early 20s. Each child could have then borrowed from his or her share only, if necessary, rather than from the entire trust. 

3. The wife/mother of the children should not have had the power to distribute all of the funds without being held to a prudent investor standard. 

4. Of course, if there had been good estate planning there would not have been a novel, nor would I have a blog.