An Estate Planner's Guide to Qualified Retirement Plan Benefits, Sixth Edition - by Louis A Mezzullo Paperback

Book Synopsis

This ABA bestseller has helped thousands of estate planners understand the complex rules and regulations governing qualified retirement plan distributions and IRAs. Now newly updated, An Estate Planner's Guide to Qualified Retirement Benefits provides expert and current guidance for structuring benefits from qualified retirement plans and IRAs, consistently relating key distribution issues to current estate planning practice. Topics covered include:

• The different types of qualified plans and the tax and non-tax rules relating to them
• The forms of distribution and the situations in which they need to be considered
• Penalty taxes
• Distribution requirements and how to calculate them
• Income taxation and handling rollovers
• Transfer taxes
• Spousal rights, QDROs, and community property considerations
• Estate and trust administration issues
• Practical planning strategies to avoid penalty and excise taxes on distributions while incurring the lowest income tax, and more

Includes appendices on tax consequences and hypothetical retirement plan scenarios, sample forms, and revenue rulings, private letter rulings, IRS news releases and notices.

About the Author

Louis A. Mezzullo is a consulting partner in Withers Bergman LLP, practicing principally out of its Rancho Santa Fe, CA, office. His principal areas of practice are taxation and estate and business planning He was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Richmond Law School from 1978 to 2006, where he taught courses in those subjects and was on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Law Graduate Program in Estate Planning from 2004 until 2007. He was an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law in 2009. He is listed in Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in Emerging Leaders, Who's Who in America (Marquis Who's Who Publishers) and The Best Lawyers in America (for tax and trust and estates) (Woodward/White Publishers). He has written articles on the subjects of taxation, estate planning, and employee benefits for the Journal of Taxation, University of Richmond Law Review, Virginia Bar Association Journal, Estate Planning, ACTEC Journal, Probate & Property, Taxation for Accountants, Taxation for Lawyers, Taxation of Employee Benefits, Journal of Passthrough Entities, Business Entities, and Trusts & Estates. He has authored An Estate Planner's Guide to Buy-Sell Agreements (1st and 2nd editions), An Estate Planner's Guide to Life Insurance (1st and 2nd Editions), An Estate Planner's Guide to Qualified Retirement Plan Benefits (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions), An Estate Planner's Guide to Family Business Entities (1st and 2nd editions), and Valuation Rules Under Chapter 14, all published by the American Bar Association Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law; coauthored Advising the Elderly Client, published by Clark Boardman Callaghan; authored Transfers of Interests in Family Entities Under Chapter 14: Sections 2701, 2703, and 2704, 803 Tax Management Portfolio (3rd edition), The Mobile Client: Tax, Community Property, etc., 835 Tax Management Portfolio (3rd Edition), Estate Planning for Owners of Closely Held Business Interests, 809 Tax Management Portfolio (2nd edition), Family Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies, 812 Tax Management Portfolio, Estate and Gift Tax Issues for Employee Benefit Plans, 378 Tax Management Portfolio (1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions), and Valuation of Corporate Stock, 831 Tax Management Portfolio (3rd edition), all published by the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.; and was editor and coauthor of Limited Liability Companies in Virginia, published by the Virginia Law Foundation. He has spoken at numerous tax and estate planning conferences, including the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the University of Southern California Institute on Federal Taxation, the Notre Dame Estate Planning Conference, the Mid-America Tax Conference, the Heart of America Tax Conference, the William and Mary Tax Conference, and the Virginia Federal Tax Conference. Mezzullo received his J.D. from the University of Richmond Law School, and a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Maryland. He is a past Chair of the American College of Tax Counsel; a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation; a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation; the a past president and Regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, as well as former Chair of its Business Planning, Employee Benefits in Estate Planning, and Elder Law Committees; a Charter Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel; an Academician and a former Vice President of the International Academy of Trust and Estate Law; and a member of the Virginia State Bar, California State Bar, and American Bar Association; a former Vice-Chair of the ABA Section of Taxation; and past Chair of the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law. He currently lives in San Diego, California.