It would be my assumption that the majority of the country’s cemeteries do not maintain a trust for the maintenance and care of its graves.  While this may differ from state to state, most states’ perpetual care statutes exempt small family cemeteries, not for profit cemeteries, municipal cemeteries, county cemeteries and church cemeteries from their

The Missouri legislature has passed a bill to authorize county commissioners to diversify their cemetery trusts.  Prior to the passage of House Bill No. 51 Missouri’s counties were restricted in how they could invest cemetery care funds.  Essentially, a Missouri county could invest care funds only in government bonds.  But, since the mortgage bond crisis

For consumers who need installments to pay for their preneed arrangement, funeral directors report that the $100 monthly payment is the comfort threshold for most individuals.   For a widow planning her own funeral, the $100 monthly payment will require an installment term of six years or longer.  If the widow needs to also cover an

One message that can be taken from the FAMIC’s Talk of a Lifetime campaign is that funeral directors need to re-think their prearrangement procedures.  Perhaps too much emphasis has been given to preneed, and not enough to the planning process.  Prearrangement marketing and procedures have often been crafted by the funeral home’s preneed funding agent. 

It has been almost ten years since the return on Government bonds fell below 5%.  But bond returns did not hit bottom until four years later when the sub-prime mortgage market collapsed.  Those conditions threatened the nation’s credit markets, and so, in 2008, the Federal Reserve Board initiated a stimulus program involving the purchase of

Tax day is only a week away, and preneed trust returns will look a little different this year.  As we reported back in December, the IRS took the position that preneed trusts are subject to the Medicare Tax used to fund the Affordable Health Care Act.  Accordingly, Federal Form 1041QFT now requires the reporting of