From the Editor – Property of Estate and Exemptions

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired)

State law allowed IRA exemption. The Chapter 7 trustee objected to the debtors’ claims of exemption in IRAs when the debtors were unable to deduct the IRA contributions from income on federal tax returns, not because they overfunded the IRA but because one of the taxpayers had a retirement plan at work and their total income exceeded the IRS cap. Under the applicable California exemption, the fact that the IRA contributions were not deductible from taxable income was irrelevant to whether the IRA account itself was “exempt” from taxation . . .

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