Berks County Estate Planning Council | Dinner Meeting - January 15, 2025 | Directed Trust Act
Meeting on Wednesday, January 15, 2025, with a 45-minute networking session from 5:15-6:00 pm followed by dinner and presentation from 6:00-7:45 pm at Building 24 in Wyomissing.
The guest speaker is Tom Work of Stevens & Lee C. Thomas Work - Stevens & Lee (stevenslee.com). Tom’s presentation will be on Pennsylvania’s new Directed Trust Act. A trustee’s typical responsibilities are the investment of assets, making distributions to beneficiaries consistent with the terms of the trust, keeping accurate and complete records, ensuring the preparation and timely filing of the trust’s income tax returns, and giving the beneficiaries the information they need to complete their own tax returns.
The new Pennsylvania Directed Trust Act, Act No. 64 of 2024, levels the playing field with Delaware and many other states by allowing Pennsylvanians who create trusts to allocate different responsibilities among co-trustees, and between trustees and non-trustees who add value to the trust relationship. The most common examples are investment managers who direct trustees how to invest a trust’s marketable securities, business colleagues who guide a trustee in the management of an operating business in which the trust has an interest, and trust protectors who may update the terms of an irrevocable trust to respond to changes in tax laws and a client’s family.
We will discuss how the new law enables these relationships and provides clarity as to roles, responsibilities and potential liability, and the marketing opportunities the Directed Trust Act provides to keep trust business in Pennsylvania.
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Special thanks to our meeting sponsor.
