Pennsylvania Fiduciary Litigation : Pennsylvania Trusts and Estates Lawyer & Expert Witness : Patti Spencer Law Firm : Fiduciary Litigation, Planning : Lancaster, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Spencer Fiduciary Services offers trust and estate expertise to law firms and banks

LANCASTER, PA – May 27 – BUSINESS WIRE – At a time when law firms are scaling back operations or completely dissolving, Pennsylvania-based trust and estates attorney Patti S. Spencer has taken the bold step of starting a new corporate entity.

Spencer Fiduciary Services (SFS, www.spencerfiduciaryservices.com) is a private consulting company dedicated to providing trust and estate services to law firms and financial institutions. Founding attorney Patti Spencer, head of Lancaster-based Spencer Law Firm (www.spencerlawfirm.com), saw a need in the market for outsourced trust administration and estate settlement services.

“Handling trust and estate matters for clients is a natural expansion opportunity for many law firms, but it requires specialized expertise that may not be available within a firm,” says Spencer. 

SFS is designed to help Pennsylvania law firms and banks administer estates and trusts; value assets; and prepare and file inheritance, federal estate, or fiduciary income tax returns. SFS also helps clients comply with the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA), the Uniform Principal and Income Act (UPAIA), and the Uniform Trust Act (UTA).

“We work behind the scenes or directly with a firm’s clients to provide a wide range of estate and trust services,” says SFS Director M. Yvonne Crouse. “The client always remains the attorney of record.”

Law firms and banks that partner with SFS can maintain their client relationship while gaining in-depth tax knowledge, state of the art technology, and experienced staff. Every client of Spencer Fiduciary Services receives a password-protected Internet portal for unlimited access to all account documentation.

When trust and estate disputes lead to fiduciary litigation or arbitration, Ms. Spencer is also available to serve as an expert witness in matters relating to fee disagreements, attorney malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, failure to pay taxes, estate violations, or fiduciary investment management.

About Patti S. Spencer, Esq.

Patti S. Spencer is a nationally recognized trusts and estates attorney, author and educator. She is a peer-nominated Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. Her publications include “Pennsylvania Estate Planning, Wills and Trusts Library” (Data Trace, 2007), and “Your Estate Matters” (AuthorHouse, 2005). Her blogs include www.pennsylvaniafiduciarylitigation.com and www.pennsylvaniatrustsandestates.com.

Contact:

Margaret Grisdela

Legal Expert Connections, Inc.

866-417-7025, mg@legalexpertconnections.com

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                            "The power to tax involves the power to destroy."

                                                                         --Chief Justice John Marshall  in McCulloch v. Maryland 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other congressional Democrats have proposed a 91% tax on bonuses given to executives of AIG and other companies. The proposed legislation is a way to recover the $165 million paid out to AIG executives, which triggered widespread outrage because the insurance giant received more than $170 billion in U.S. taxpayer money and is now owned 80% by the U.S. Government.

AIG claims its hands are tied under contract law and that the payouts had to be made to avoid lawsuits. Some legislators think if the government "claws the money back" from the AIG executives, that objection is removed.

Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Lawrence Tribe was asked by Wall Street Journal Blog reporter Ashby Jones whether a retroactive tax would violate either the prohibition on Bills of Attainder or Ex Post Facto Laws.

A Bill of Attainder is an act of the legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. The word "attainder", meaning "taintedness", is part of English common law. Under common law, a criminal condemned for a serious crime, could be declared "attainted", meaning that his civil rights were nullified: he could no longer own property or pass property to his family by will. Bills of attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the U. S. Constitution.

In an e-mail exchange, Tribe was asked if a law that targeted AIG executives violates the prohibition on Bills of Attainder. Tribe responded, "I do think Congress (and the Executive Branch) could avoid serious Bill of Attainder problems by passing a sufficiently broad law . . . rather than targeting a closed class of named executives even though the prohibition against Bills of Attainder, unlike that against Ex Post Facto laws, potentially reaches civil as well as criminal penalties."

An Ex Post Facto Law (from the Latin for "after the fact") is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. The federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, and the states are prohibited from the same by clause 1 of section 10.

When asked by the Wall Street Journal if a law that imposed a tax on past-gotten earnings would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause, Tribe responded, "The Ex Post Facto Clause applies exclusively to criminal punishment and poses no difficulty here. And the fact that the measure contemplated would operate retroactively as well as prospectively doesn’t distinguish it from any number of tax and other financial measures that the Supreme Court has upheld over the claim that fundamental fairness precludes retroactively undoing contractual obligations."

In the Wall Street Journal Law Blog interview, Tribe also addressed whether the law would violate the contracts clause, the takings clause and the due process clause. He saw no problem. Many courts have ruled requirements for substantive due process are not violated if the legislation has a rational legislative purpose, "something nobody could deny in this instance," according to Tribe.

But wait – the wind is changing.

Kay Bell, in her Don’t Mess With Taxes Blog, writes: "Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, first thought the [AIG Bonus Tax] would pass court review. But he has had a change of heart, now telling Tax Analysts he has ‘growing doubts about the constitutionality of H.R. 1586’s 90 percent AIG bonus clawback tax.’"

Greg Sargent, author of The Plum Line Blog, reports on his telephone conversation with Professor Tribe. According to Sargent, Tribe says he is now leaning towards seeing the clawback tax as unconstitutional. "Tribe says the problem with the bill is that the Constitution forbids Congress from enacting a "bill of attainder", which would essentially "legislate punishment of an identifiable class", as he put it. Tribe noted that the Supreme Court had used that clause to slap down other laws."

As quoted by Sargent: "Its punitive intent is increasingly transparent," Tribe says, "when you have Chuck Grassley calling on [executives] to commit suicide, and people responding to pitch fork sentiment, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t an attempt to punish an identifiable set of individuals who are the subject of understandable outrage."

Hmmmm. So which is it? It might be bad tax policy, but it’s not unconstitutional. Tribe was right the first time. A number of the bonuses have been returned, so perhaps it’s a moot point. Until next time.

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Michael Sorkin of the St. Louis Post -Dispatch reports on alleged undue inffuence exerted by an elderly munchkin's caretaker:

Heirs sue to gain control of Munchkin Mickey Carroll's assets

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