Income v. Remainder Trust Beneficiaries

Alyssa A. Dirusso (Assistant Professor of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University) and Kathleen M. Sablone (U.S. Trust) have recently posted their article entitled Statutory Techniques for Balancing the Financial Interests of Trust Beneficiaries.

Here is the abstract of their article as published on SSRN:

Trustees have long struggled with the duty to balance the interests of current and future beneficiaries of a trust. As modern portfolio investment techniques and laws have encouraged trustees to invest for total return, trust legislation has developed that empowers trustees to mitigate the inequitable effects to beneficiaries of this investment approach. Key legislation includes the Uniform Principal and Income Act, unitrust statutes, the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act, and private foundation tax compliance statutes. This Article explains why these acts are important in the context of current investment practices and laws, details the different approaches, and compares them. It concludes by suggesting a broadening of the application of these laws, including the extension of the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act to non-institutional trustees.