A Message from the President:
We frequently succeed to trust account administration from a prior trustee. In such cases, we request copies of the prior three years of fiduciary income tax returns. I am surprised by how often we find errors in the preparation of the prior fiduciary returns. Sometimes the error is minor, like characterizing a trust as a simple trust rather than a complex trust, but some errors are more significant, like filing the incorrect state fiduciary return or failing to identify a grantor trust (we often find this mistake in special needs trusts).
Fiduciary income tax preparation is unique, often complex, and can result in significant tax liability due to the compressed tax brackets. Tax preparation is an essential trust administration service, and is best done by a preparer that has special expertise. We have always worked with an outside service to prepare our fiduciary income tax returns. Several years ago, we began to partner with a national fiduciary tax preparer, Trust Processing Solutions, who has significantly increased our fiduciary income tax expertise and gives us multi-state expertise.
As our trust business continues to grow, in both size and complexity, we decided to further our tax expertise by adding a fiduciary tax administrator to our team. Jo Stahl (see announcement and bio below) joined us in September and will be responsible for all facets of our tax compliance program, including fiduciary income, estate, gift, and personal income tax. We are delighted to have Jo as an additional resource for our team and for our account beneficiaries.
An additional service that I would like to highlight is offered through our private banking department. We offer investment secured lines of credit as a unique financing solution in the current very low interest rate environment. The line of credit is secured (pledged) by an individual’s taxable investment account and provides cash to an individual to help with things like home renovation or down payment for purchase, education expenses, new business ventures, or investment purchases. There are several key advantages to using an investment secured line of credit including:
- No need to liquidate or sell investments. You can continue to let your investment account value grow, and trade within your pledged account.
- Very competitive floating interest rate.
- Flexibility to borrow as needed, and flexible repayment terms.
This type of financing especially works well for professionals who receive bonus or distribution income at the end of the year. That lump sum can be applied to reduce the principal on the line of credit, therefore, creating additional availability on the line of credit for future needs.
If you or one of your clients would like to explore this unique solution further, please call our Private Banker, Ron Jahnke, at 262-522-7405 or email him at
rjahnke@waukeshabank.com.
Very truly yours,
