Tales from the forum: CalCPA Estate Planning Committee discussion forum has the answers.

• Author: Woodford, John R.
• Position: Estateplanning

CalCPA offers members many valuable resources on its website. Whether you deal with estate planning issues on a daily basis in your practice or just have an occasional question on topics, such as how to structure distributions from clients' IRAs, there is a valuable resource that members can use to find answers to their questions: CalCPA's Estate Planning Committee's discussion forum.

You Ask, We Answer

The committee created the forum as a means for CalCPA members to post questions to committee members and the estate planning community. Often times a short query will evolve into an in-depth discussion of the issues raised.

Responses are off-the-cuff and non-authoritative and, while intended to provide guidance to practitioners, do not supercede the need for practitioners to perform their own due diligence and seek proper technical review.

That said, the forum provides valuable insight that may be beneficial to you and your clients.

The Estate Planning Committee is fortunate to have a number of talented professionals who deal with estate, trust and estate planning issues daily and who help to monitor the forum.

The forum is monitored and the committee attempts to respond to a question within 24 hours of posting.

Previous questions, along with the responses, are archived on the forum to provide guidance to other members who may have similar issues. Forum postings can be sorted by date or topic to make scanning the forum easier. There are 130 archived questions and related responses on the forum, and by default, the forum lists the most recent question first.

The following is a sample of recent postings and the responses in the order posted; this should provide you with a flavor of the type of resources available.

Clarification on IRA Bequest

Decedent and surviving spouse have a combined net worth of $8 million, or $4 million each (community property state). Decedent has a $1 million IRA in which he has named his two children as primary beneficiaries instead of his surviving spouse, even though the IRA is community property.

Ordinarily, if the wife was the beneficiary, I'd list the $1 million IRA and would back out 50 percent of it for the surviving spouse's community property interest. On Schedule M, I'd list the decedent's 50 percent community property interest in the IRA for the unlimited marital deduction.

For this 706, I would assume that I back out the surviving spouse's 50 percent community property interest in the IRA so that there...