MAINE ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL

Topic:

Irrevocable Trusts in the New World Order

Please join us for a dinner meeting and program focusing on issues surrounding the termination of the irrevocable trusts in light of significant changes to the Federal and Maine estate tax – particularly the underlying exemption amounts.

The discussion will highlight the estate tax and income tax considerations facing families with existing irrevocable trusts, as well as issues to be considered in evaluating the early termination of such trusts, including the following:

1. Circumstances in which terminations are appropriate;

2. Methods for ensuring the trust termination is accomplished efficiently;

3. Reasons to continue a trust; and

4. Fiduciary responsibilities to consider in the analysis.

Our speakers will be Elizabeth (Betsey) McCandless and Sarah Coburn.

Betsey began her legal career in New York City, working there from 1982 to 1985. She moved to Maine in 1985 and joined Pierce Atwood in Portland. In 1992 she co-founded Maine's first boutique trusts and estates firm, McCandless & Hunt, which is now known as McCandless & Coburn.

Betsey is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), a national professional organization to which she was elected in 1995. She was a member of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's Advisory Committee on Probate Rules for nine years, serving as Chair from 1996 through 2003. She was Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the University of Maine Foundation. Currently, Betsey serves as a Trustee of the Diocesan Funds for the Episcopal Diocese of Maine and also serves as a Director of the Hospice of Southern Maine, a hospice program in York and Cumberland Counties, which operates the Gosnell House in Scarborough. She frequently lectures on charitable giving, estate administration and estate planning.