care

Subscribe to care

A Google search of “state funeral association master trust” will return hyperlinks to dozens of state funeral director associations.  In the 1970’s, funeral associations began establishing master preneed trusts as an alternative to passbook savings accounts.  As preneed gained acceptance with funeral directors, the associations saw the opportunity to provide administration and create a revenue…

Legislation was introduced this week in the Kansas Legislature, and one of the bill’s changes seeks to clarify how cemetery care fund requirements can be computed. We have found this a source of confusion for cemeteries and regulators in many states. Depending upon the type of interment right purchased, the care fund requirement is often…

The International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) made an old but persuasive argument to get the IRS to exempt cemetery care trusts from the Medicare tax that will fund ObamaCare.  As discussed in a prior post, the IRS had initially proposed to apply the tax to both cemetery care trusts and preneed trusts.  With …

 A cemetery operator recently expressed his frustration with the trust officer of his care fund trust.   An examination of the trust had cited the operator for inappropriate distributions from principal with regard to expense payments.  We suggested to the operator that it is very common for trustees to set up care fund accounts with …

In its past two newsletters, my local chapter of the Funeral Consumer Alliance has reported on the difficulties in finding cemeteries that permit natural burials. In the Spring newsletter, the FCA of Greater KC reported on how the Catholic Cemeteries of Northeast Kansas was reconsidering natural burials at one of its six cemeteries. In…

A Missouri preneed auditor recently requested an explanation from a client why certain accounts were underfunded.  The handful of accounts were “underfunded” by varying amounts of a few dollars to twenty dollars.  The common fact with each was an initial deposit or substantial deposit in the month preceding the Federal Chairman’s remarks that …

As cemeteries struggle with harsh economic conditions, regulators are bound to look at their ‘problem cemeteries’ and weigh whether legal proceedings are necessary to preserve the care funds mandated by state law. To the extent such proceedings are premised in part on how capital gains are defined and whether distributions from capital gains are an…