When Champ Clark, a prominent local businessman, died in 1978, he left Ewing a trust of $109,000, on the condition that it incorporate and spend the earnings from the trust on electricity for street lights.
Ideally, "the earnings of the trust exceed the payout rate to the charity," explains Suzette Loh, a certified financial planner with accounting and consulting firm Richard A. Eisner & Co. in New York.
The surviving spouse has access to the trust's earnings and, if need be, principal, but what's in the trust "bypasses" the survivor's estate.
The surviving spouse has access to the trust's earnings and principal, but what's left in the trust "bypasses" the survivor's estate.
You don't get any tax breaks (the trust's earnings are taxable) but the money can be used for any purpose allowed in the trust documents.
The dissenting opinion came from Dr Heidi Poon, who concluded that the money received by the employees through the trust constituted earnings for income tax purposes.
(Behind closed doors, this legal hornet's nest was resolved with the University of the South receiving the assets of the trust — including the earnings of the published works — and Harvard getting clear title to the manuscripts).
Astor doesn't need the cash now but resents that half the trust's yearly earnings are eaten up by fees.
Yet investors continued to heed all those buy recommendations, put their faith in earnings forecasts and trust the assurances of the auditors.
According to the New York Times obituary, "it was estimated after Mr. Rockefeller retired from business that he had accumulated close to $1,500,000,000 out of the earnings of the Standard Oil trust and out of his other investments.
The earnings and, if need be, principal of the trust are available to the survivor.
