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Joel Luber, Chair of Reger Rizzo & Darnall’s Estates & Trusts Practice Group authored an article entitled, Power of Appointment – Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, for the Winter 2021 edition of the Philadelphia Estate Planning Council newsletter. 

When your estate planning needs to take into consideration multiple generations, one must accept the fact that it is impossible to predict the future and the myriad of changes that can take place, both from the perspective of family dynamics and applicable tax law. Such planning, therefore, requires flexibility, that is, the ability to adapt to those changes in circumstances, even when documents are otherwise irrevocable and purportedly unamendable. The tool to create that flexibility is a power of appointment. With a power of appointment, a trust may, effectively, be re-examined at every generation. Professor W. Barton Leach described the power of appointment as “the most efficient dispositive device that the ingenuity of Anglo-American lawyers has ever worked out.”

For more information, you can read the full article online here.