Agents acting under durable powers of attorney are in a position to abuse their powers. Vulnerable elderly principals can be taken advantage of by the very persons they appointed to this position of trust.
Dennis R. Roddy, writing for the Pittsburgh Gazette, addressed this issue in "Courting Trouble: The document granting ‘power of attorney
Stephen Greenspan has written an article entitled Why We Keep Falling for Financial Scams, published in the Wall Street Journal on Janury 3, 2009. See the article here.
Greenspan writes:
"There are few areas where skepticism is more important than how one invests one’s life savings. Yet intelligent and educated people, some of them naïve
Lancaster Sunday News front-page headline today:
" Retired county judge challenges late sons’ $500,000-$900,000 bequest to Lancaster Public Library; state Attorney General’s office wants the filing attorney – judge’s son-in-law – off the case."
Read the article – click here or here.
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS:
The retired judge is Wilson Bucher, now 88 years old.
Your marital status on December 31 determines your filing status for the entire preceding year. If you are still married on December 31, you have a choice. You can file jointly with your soon-to-be ex-spouse or file using married filing separately status. You might qualify to file as Head of Household even though you are
OK so you lost a fortune with Madoff, at least you get a tax write-off.
Steve Dubner explains it in this New York Times article – click here.
See also Prof. Paul Caron’s Post:
When I draft wills and trusts I always include definitions of "child" and "descendant:"
"For purposes hereof, the term "child," however expressed, shall refer to any descendant in the first degree of the parent designated. The term "descendant," however expressed, shall include (i) children or more remote descendants, either naturally born or legally adopted, but
In general, any payment, whether called a gift or not, to an employee is taxable income to the employee.
Gifts of nominal value, such as a holiday turkey, are treated as de minimis fringe benefits. A gift to an employee is de minimis if the value is nominal, accounting for the item would be administratively
When I graduated from law school, I had little insight into the business of running a law practice. Don’t get me wrong; I had great knowledge about the law. But I did not know how to actually build a client roster, create and deliver services, administer an office, and get paid a fair fee for
Neil Hendershot has an excellent post about POA Abuse here which includes the research report "Power of Attorney Abuse: What States Can Do About It."
The most egregious abuse is where the agent simply takes (that is, steals) the principal’s money for is or her own purposes. But there are many other type of
Trusts and Estates published an article here called Get Me To The Church On Time by John T. Brooks and Samantha E. Weissbluth. They write:
"The Kinney case out of Minnesota offers a good review of the general requirements for a valid prenuptial agreement. The appeal also shows a modern trend in which courts