This handbook is a comprehensive guide for attorneys advising clients about retirement benefits under individual retirement accounts and tax-qualified plans. It explains how to maximize the potential of retirement benefits — a significant asset for most of your clients — as an estate planning tool. Retirement benefits are subject to complex income, estate, and other taxes, as well as required minimum distributions, during the client’s lifetime and following death, and this handbook will help you navigate these issues. Other topics include beneficiary designations, charitable giving, employee stock ownership plans, postmortem planning, creditor protection, and nonmarketable investments.
Chapter 1 — Introduction to the Use of Retirement Benefits in Estate Planning
Mary-Ann Wilson, Harrison & Held, LLP, Chicago
Chapter 2 — Income, Estate, and Other Tax Considerations
Mary-Ann Wilson, Harrison & Held, LLP, Chicago
Chapter 3 — Required Minimum Distribution Rules: Who, What, When, and Why
Sandra M. Schildgen, Wilson & Wilson Estate Planning & Elder Law LLC,Chicago
Chapter 4 — Beneficiary Designations for Individual Retirement Accounts and Qualified Plans
Joe N. Blumberg, The Northern Trust Company,Chicago
Chapter 5 — Naming a Trust as a Beneficiary
Hallie J. Ritzu, Olive Avenue LLC, Chicago
Chapter 6 — Charitable Giving with Retirement Plan Assets
Reviewed by IICLE staff
Chapter 7 — Qualified Domestic Relations Orders and Spousal Rights
Michael T. Held, Harrison & Held, LLP, Chicago
Chapter 8 — Special Considerations for Employee Stock Ownership Plans
Castles R. Hollis, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Atlanta, Georgia
Chapter 9 — Retirement Plans and Creditor Protection
Cindy M. Johnson, Johnson Legal Group, LLC, Chicago, and Ben A. Neiburger, Generation Law, Elmhurst
Chapter 10 — The Efficacy of Individual Retirement Arrangement Planning and Investments: Allocating Assets Between Taxable and Tax-Deferred Accounts
Steven B. Weinstein, Altair Advisers LLC,Chicago
Chapter 11 — Handling Individual Retirement Accounts and Qualified Plans After the Individual Retirement Accounts Owner or Participant Is Deceased
Joe N. Blumberg and Kenneth T. Little, The Northern Trust Company,Chicago
Chapter 12 — Roth Individual Retirement Arrangements
Ryan M. Holmes, Clark Hill PLC, Chicago
Chapter 13 — Postmortem Planning
Kenneth A. Goldstein, Horwood, Marcus & Berk, Chartered, and Grant R. Hendricks, Levenfeld Pearlstein, LLC, Chicago
Chapter 14 — Nonmarketable Investments in Individual Retirement Accounts
Robert S. Held, Harrison & Held, LLP, Chicago
