The Trustee and State Trust Laws

• Author: Seymour Goldberg
• Profession: Senior partner in the law firm of Goldberg & Goldberg, P.C., in Woodbury, New York
• Pages: 5-7

Over the last decade or more, most states plus the District of Columbia

have adopted versions of the 1997 UPAIA.

These revised laws triggered the need for the Tax Division of the Ameri-

can Institute of Certied Public Accountants (AICPA) in December 2007

to issue a comprehensive Practice Guide for Fiduciary (Trust) Accounting.

It is a guide for accountants who perform duciary accounting services.

This practice guide (including the appendix) is over 250 pages long.

The purpose is to provide information on what issues the CPA should

know about when preparing duciary accountings and duciary income

tax returns.

A dedicated number of members of the AICPA spent several years

developing the trust accounting practice guide. These AICPA members

were members of the AICPA Trust Accounting Income (TAI) Task Force.

In 2008, amendments were adopted by the National Conference of

Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to the 1997 version of UPAIA.

Each jurisdiction then decided whether or not to adopt the recommended

changes in whole or in part. Most states have adopted the recommended

changes, but a number of states did not. This makes life difcult since

the professional adviser must constantly monitor the state trust account-

ing law in his or her jurisdiction to determine if any changes were made

as well as the effective date of any changes.

The AICPA Task Force in an executive summary indicated, in essence,

the following:

(1)

Since the number and size of trusts and estates are growing, there is

more of a need for competent duciary accounting services.

5

THE TRUSTEE AND

STATE TRUST LAWS