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A situation where beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system, often leading to a lack of exposure to differing viewpoints.

Environments where individuals are exposed predominantly to information and opinions that reinforce their existing beliefs.

Increasing the size of something, such as produced goods or 401(k) accounts, reduces the cost per item. • For Companies: Economies of scale refer to the cost advantages that a company can achieve as it increases production levels. In simple terms, the more a company produces, the lower the cost per unit. This is because fixed costs, such as machinery and equipment, can be spread out over a larger number of units, resulting in lower average costs. Economies of scale are why larger companies often have a competitive advantage over smaller ones, as they can produce goods at a lower cost and sell them at a lower price while still making a profit. • For 401(k) Plans: “[L]arger plan sizes enable plan sponsors to negotiate better record-keeping fees, which can benefit both participants and the sponsor.” Robert Powell, Your company may want to hold your 401(k) assets when you retire–and you may want to let them, MarketWatch, Aug. 15, 2023 (Apple News link).

“When assets are contributed to a charity as ‘endowment funds,’ meaning that they are contributed subject to donor restrictions as to their expenditure, state law generally imposes specific restrictions on the charity’s ability to invest and spend such assets.” Antonia M. Grumbach, Charitable Asset Maintenance: Flexibility and Responsibility in the Not-for-Profit Arena (Oct. 2003).

“For most of the past two decades, the cost of education rose more quickly than the general inflation rate, with the Consumer Price Index growing at 2.5% annually while the Tuition Index grew at 4%. Although this trend reversed in 2020 and has remained so since, it does not mean that education inflation has subsided. . . . Continually rising tuition costs underpin the importance for families to save early and frequently within a 529’s tax-advantaged structure; the additional time helps harness the effects of compounding to keep up with these increasing costs.” Hyunmin Kim, 529 Plans: What’s Changed and What’s the Same?, Morningstar, June 12, 2023 (Apple News link).

“[A]n effective tax rate is the actual tax rate paid on total income. One way to calculate the effective tax rate is to add up the total amount of tax paid and divide that by taxable income. The quotient is the effective tax rate.” TheStreet Staff, What Is a Marginal Tax Rate? Definition & Example, TheStreet, May 24, 2023 (Apple News link).

“[I]dentified the difficulty of outperforming the market because information affecting price was quickly available and taken into account.” Hon. C. Raymond Radigan, The Evolution of the Principal and Income Act Under the EPTL, NYLJ, May 19, 2004. • “Efficient market theory instructs us that it is impossible to outsmart the market by predicting which securities will do belter or worse. Owning many securities enhances the chances of offsetting losers with winners.” John H. Langbein, The Uniform Prudent Investor Act and the Future of Trust Investing, 81 Iowa L. Rev. 641, 647 (1996).

Someone who dispossesses another.

A type of employee retirement contribution where a portion of an employee’s salary is withheld pre-tax and transferred into an employer-sponsored retirement plan — 401(k), 403(b), or SIMPLE IRA plans. • The employee contribution is generally a percentage of the employee’s compensation, but some plans permit the employee to contribute a specific dollar amount each pay period. • Also called “salary reduction contribution.” C.f. designated Roth contribution.

For years after 2020, with respect to inherited IRA accounts and retirement plans, a spouse or minor child of the deceased account holder, disabled or chronically ill individual, or an individual who is more than 10 years younger than the IRA owner or plan participant. An eligible designated beneficiary can take distributions over the longer of their own life expectancy and the employee’s remaining life expectancy, or follow the 10-year rule (if the account owner died before that owner’s required beginning date). Retirement Topics - Beneficiary, irs.gov.

Savings that someone uses only when certain events occur. • Money set aside for unforeseen expenses. • “There are no strict rules on what counts as an emergency, but as a general rule of thumb, it should only be used for essential expenses. . . . You should keep your emergency fund in a relatively accessible account . . . .” Alexandria White, Emergency funds can offset surprise medical bills, unemployment an more–here’s how to get started, CNBC, May 3, 2023. • See emergency fund articles on WTE.

In feudal times, to give land. • Responding to the 1166 questionnaire by Henry II asking about the number of knights enfeoffed on the tenant’s land and the number required by his service, the return of the Archbishop of York wrote, “[O]ur predecessors enfeoffed more knights than they owed to the king, and they did this, not for the necessities of the royal service, but because they wished to provide for their relatives and servants.” Douglas and Greenaway, 2 English Historical Documents 907 (Oxford Univ.Press, 1953), quoted in Cornelius J. Moynihan & Sheldon F. Kurtz, Introduction to the Law of Real Property 5 n.9 (7th ed. 2020).

An approach to taxing the income of a partnership that treats the partnership as an entity that is separate from its partners. C.f. “aggregate” approach to partnership taxation.

See equitable apportionment.

“Requiring a fiduciary to reallocate benefits or burdens is the doctrine of equitable apportionment. In after-death tax planning, the doctrine is called equitable adjustment.” Joel C. Dobris, Limits on the Doctrine of Equitable Adjustment in Sophisticated Postmortem Tax Planning, 66 Iowa L. Rev. 273 (1981) (citations omitted).

“The doctrine of equitable adjustment allows for a reallocation of assets from the account of one beneficiary of a trust to the account of another to compensate for the disproportionate sharing of a tax burden. Carrico and Bondurant, Equitable Adjustments: A Survey and Analysis of Precedents and Practice, 36 Tax Law. 545, 545 (1983). The genesis of the doctrine is Estate of Warms, 140 N.Y.S.2d 169 (N.Y. Sur. Ct. 1955). In Warms, the court concluded that the trust’s principal account was entitled to a reimbursement from the income beneficiary’s account for the tax savings that would have resulted if the administration expenses, paid from principal, had been deducted from principal in computing the estate tax instead of from income on the estate’s income tax return. Id. at 170-71. Warms specifically did not decide the question which would have arisen if the executors had no option but would have had to deduct from income taxes an expense otherwise chargeable to principal. Id. at 171.” In re Jane Bradley Uihlein Trust, 142 Wis. 2d 277, 417 N.W.2d 908 (Wis. Ct. App. 1987).

For an LLC: A court’s equitable power “to order buyout damages under other circumstances not involving a member’s decision to seek dissolution.” Reliant Life Shares, LLC v. Cooper, 90 Cal. App. 5th 14 (CA Ct. Appeals, Second District, Division Eight, 2023). • “This is the [author’s] first encounter with the concept of an equitable LLC buyout . . . . Under the holding of the Reliant LIfe Shares opinion, a trial court has authority to order an ‘equitable buyout’ of an LLC member as a remedy for the other members’ wrongdoing.” writes Kevin Brodehl in “Equitable Buyout” as a Remedy for LLC Wrongdoing?, JD Supra, June 26, 2023. C.f. statutory buyout. “As an equitable remedy, the application of equitable buyouts will be hyper-sensitive to the specific facts and claims of each case.” • C.f. contractual buyout, statutory buyout.

During the probate of a will, a transformation of real property to personalty by an executor that occurs when the executor sells the real property pursuant to a positive direction to convert the real property to personalty that is either expressed (i.e., there is an “explicit and imperative direction for its exercise”) or implied (because it is necessary and essential for the disposition of the testator’s estate to be carried out). Schoelle v. Schoelle, 21 N.E. 84 (N.Y. Ct. Appeals 1889). A discretionary power of sale does not result in equitable conversion. Id.

“[E]ssentially the premium return that investing in stocks should provide versus a risk-free rate like the yield on U.S. Treasuries.” Nicholas Jasinski, Saving the Banks Isn’t Quantitative Easing, Barron’s, March 20, 2023 (Apple News link).

The consequence of someone dying without an estate plan and without an heir: The decedent’s estate goes to the government. • In medieval times, the decedent’s estate would escheat to the overlord. Today, it escheats to the state where the property is located. • See Estate of Clark, 271 A.D. 691, 696, 68 N.Y.S.2d 487 (App. Div. 4th Dep’t 1947) (“[T]itle vests in the State at once, upon the death of a decedent, intestate and without heirs or distributees.”).

ESG is an acronym that stands for “environmental, social, and corporate governance.” • “Environmental Social and Governance or “ESG” standards describe a broad array of criteria. Environmental factors examine environmental impacts (such as waste management and greenhouse gas production). Social factors focus on human rights violations and violations of labor laws (such as human trafficking and child labor in the supply chains), among other things. Governance factors consider longer-term value, positive and negative spillover effects, and whether a corporation has implemented structures and personnel with diverse perspectives to avoid the kinds of group-think that led to the mortgage crisis and Great Recession. Ultimately, ESG ratings allow investors, with an aversion to longer-term risks and with preferences beyond short term profit, to pick and choose where they invest their money.” Tracey Roberts, Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Roberts Reviews The Missing “T” in ESG By Chaim & Parchomovsky, TaxProf Blog, May 17, 2024. • See Tamara Keith, Biden has vetoed his first bill. Here’s how that compares to other presidents, NPR, March 20, 2023 (Apple News link) (“the veto blocks a measure that was aimed at reversing a Biden administration rule for pension managers. The rule allows them to make investment decisions taking into consideration environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors.”).

(1) All of the assets that someone owns. • An “estate” can have a different scope depending on the context, including probate estate, non-probate estate, gross estate for purposes of the federal estate tax. • NY EPTL 1-2.6(b) codifies this meaning of “estate”: “The aggregate of property which a person owns.”

(2) The interest a person has in property. • EPTL 1-2.6(a) codifies another meaning for “estate”: “The interest which a person has in property.”

(3) The estate of a decedent. • EPTL 11-1.1(a) (“Fiduciaries’ powers”) defines the term “estate” for purposes of EPTL 11-1.1 to mean “the estate of a decedent,” “unless the context or subject matter otherwise requires.”

Planning for the accumulation, preservation, protection, decumulation, and transmission of wealth. • Estate planning is an umbrella term that encompasses different types of planning, including planning for incapacity, retirement, charitable gifting, paying for long-term care, the transmission of wealth in a family during life and upon death, and tax minimization. Estate planning is distinguishable from estate administration, a process which effectuates the plan. • A good estate plan must anticipate its successful administration. A comprehensive estate plan looks at “wealth” broadly to include not only an individual’s assets, but also values. • Estate planning professionals include financial advisors, accountants, lawyers, and fiduciaries. • “Reframe your thoughts about estate planning. It is not only morbid thoughts of dying. Estate planning should be as much planning for life: retirement, illness, disability, young kids, college, etc. . . . Estate planning means retirement, insurance, and other planning.” Martin Shenkman, New Year’s Estate Planning Resolutions, Forbes, Dec. 28, 2022 (Apple News link).

An estate tax is imposed on the estate of a decedent for the privilege of transferring property at death. • The IRS defines the estate tax as “a tax on your right to transfer property at your death.” C.f. inheritance tax.

See tax cliff.

To sign.

Someone (an individual or corporation) named by a testator in a last will and testament to carry out the testator’s directions. • Someone who manages a decedent’s testamentary estate by probating the decedent’s will, marshaling the decedent’s assets, notifying creditors and persons interested in the estate’s assets, paying outstanding debts, and distributing the decedent’s remaining assets according to the terms of the will. • NY SCPA 103(20) defines “executor” as “[a]ny person to whom letters testamentary have been issued.” • Powers of Sale in an Executor in Pennsylvania: “An executor is the person, or, in modern times, frequently a corporation, named to carry out the directions of a man’s last will and testament. A testament relates solely to personal property, and a will to real estate, and the latter operates as a devise of the legal title and needs no executor. The office of an executor, therefore, pertains properly to the administration of the personal estate, and the executor has no authority over the real estate, except under a special provision to that effect contained in the will, or by virtue of an Act of Assembly.”  • For example, Oklahoma changes the default rule regarding wills and makes the personal representative necessary for the transfer of both a devise and a legacy: “In a specific devise or legacy, the title passes by the will, but possession can only be obtained from the personal representative; and he may be authorized by the district court to sell the property devised or bequeathed, in the cases herein provided.” Ok. Stat. tit.84 Sec. 7 Title and possession - Representative may sell property devised (Oklahoma Statutes, 2023). • See fiduciary.

“Owning many securities enhances the chances of offsetting losers with winners.” John H. Langbein, The Uniform Prudent Investor Act and the Future of Trust Investing, 81 Iowa L. Rev. 641, 647 (1996). • Diversification minimizes risk.

The ex-dividend date is the date on which a stock begins trading without the upcoming dividend payment. If you buy a stock on or after the ex-dividend date, you are not entitled to receive the dividend for that period. For example, if a company declares a dividend with a record date of May 1 and an ex-dividend date of April 28, anyone who buys shares on or after April 28 will not receive the dividend payment.

The ex-dividend effect refers to the impact that the payment of a dividend has on the price of a stock. When a company declares a dividend, it sets a record date, which is the date on which shareholders must be on the company’s books in order to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is typically set two business days before the record date. If an investor buys a stock on or after the ex-dividend date, they are not entitled to receive the upcoming dividend payment. As a result, the stock price may drop by the amount of the dividend on the ex-dividend date, as investors who are seeking to receive the dividend sell their shares to those who are not. This is known as the ex-dividend effect.