Our previous post discussed care fund audits and the tracking of a cemetery’s property sales and care fund liability. The next step of the audit process is following the money to the care fund trust (and the back from the trust to the cemetery). For these purposes, the Missouri audit notice requests trust statements from
Compliance
Missouri Care Fund Audits: Tracking IR Sales and Trust Deposits
Missouri is catching up on its auditing of licensed endowed care funds. Within the past couple of months, most of our Missouri endowed cemeteries received the attached notice requesting reports and documents for audit. In prior posts, we have suggested that the Office of Endowed Care Cemeteries (OECC) audit process should be revised. Our next…
NPS’ Trustee and Income Distributions: Who needs Income?
We had hoped that the Trial Court’s Finding of Facts would shed some light on how a Missouri preneed trust holding life insurance would have income to distribute. Despite being invested primarily in life insurance policies, Allegiant Bank made monthly income distributions to NPS. The Trial Court made several findings on how Allegiant Bank failed…
NPS’ Trial Court: Trustees and Individual Deposit Records
“Allegiant [Bank] violated the industry standard of care by not maintaining consumer-level deposit records, because, as here, where there are multiple beneficiaries of a trust, the trustee must keep records of the individual deposits made for each consumer.”
This finding by the trial court in the NPS civil trial had to come as a shock…
Allegiant Bank and NPS: Know Your Client
PNC Bank has been hit with $15 million of punitive damages because Allegiant Bank did not know its client.
Before opening a fiduciary account, banks are required to perform due diligence on the trust’s grantor and on the trust’s purposes. Such due diligence is referred to as ‘know your client’ or “KYC”. KYC requirements had…
National Prearranged Services: A Serious Lack of Fiduciary Oversight
National Prearranged Services is back in the news after a trial court issued a new $102 million judgment against PNC Bank (the corporate successor of Allegiant Bank). Allegiant Bank served as NPS’ Missouri preneed trustee for six years beginning in 1998. When PNC Bank agreed to purchase Allegiant in 2004, PNC performed due diligence that…
Missouri’s Phase 2.5 of Preneed Exams: Section 436.425 and Insurance Funded Contracts
In our last post we discussed the need for the Missouri State Board to provide guidance to their financial examiners regarding Section 436.425 and insurance funded contract forms. In this post we will discuss Section 436.425 and trust or joint account funded contracts.
Subparagraph 9 has created confusion for examiners and sellers. That section states…
Missouri’s Phase 2.5 of Preneed Exams: Section 436.425 and Insurance Funded Contracts
At its April meeting, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors discussed the formation of a “Phase 3 Committee” that would provide input for the revision of the Board financial examination handbook. The Board staff is about half way through the second round of preneed examinations (“Phase 2”), and the Board wants to…
Preneed Trusts and the QFT: The Individual Account Statement
We continue our discussion of the composite Federal Form 1041QFT with a post about the individual account statement.
With the composite return, income and expenses are allocated to the individual preneed account and taxes are computed at that level rather than at the trust level. To allow the IRS to test the composite tax liabilities,…
Federal Form 1041QFT and Composite Returns: Periodic Income Allocations
There are two methods for preparing a Federal Form 1041QFT. One method has the trustee applying the QFT tax rate schedule to the preneed trust’s net income. For larger preneed trusts, this method will likely trigger the highest tax rate (37%). The other method is called the composite return, where trust income and expenses are…