THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, September 11, 2026 Page 11 SOCCER | FROM PAGE 1 both NECC freshmen and each a Greater Boston League All-Star TRUSTEE COMPENSATION PROVISION IN IRREVOCABLE TRUST tion for actual services rendered. The Trustee would be required to submit an invoice. No court of law would allow a Trustee to drain the principal of the Trust in order to pay himself or herself unreasonable Trustee compensation. Since the Settlor/Trustee M assHealth has in the past made the argument that if the Settlor of an irrevocable Trust, who is also serving as Trustee, has the right, pursuant to the terms of the Trust, to receive compensation, that this somehow results in the Settlor having the right to receive principal distributions thereby rendering all of the assets housed in the irrevocable Trust a “countable” resource for MassHealth eligibility purposes. I suppose even if one of the children of the Settlor were to serve as Trustee, MassHealth could try to argue that the child’s compensation could include principal and the Settlor could ask the child to hand over principal to the Settlor. If the child does not, the Settlor could remove and replace the child Trustee with someone else that would be more cooperative. So, the power to replace and remove the Trustee virtually for any reason arguably provides the Settlor with as much power over the Trust as if he or she were serving as Trustee. Pursuant to well-settled Trust law, the Trustee of a Trust is only entitled to fair and reasonable compensawould now be in a nursing home, how could he or she, as Trustee, render services to the Trust in order to be entitled to compensation in the first place? Trustee compensation would result in taxable earned income and would fall under 130 CMR 520.009(c), a Massachusetts regulation that essentially states that such compensation for services rendered to the Trust is not equivalent to the Settlor/Trustee being “benefitted” from the Trust as a beneficiary is so benefitted. The Trustee earned the income as a result of services rendered, which is a far cry from receiving income or principal merely because of the fact that he or she might also be a beneficiary of the Trust. As an example, if the Settlor/Trustee happened to be a carpenter and performed carpentry services related to real estate held in the Trust, and invoiced the Trust for such services, wouldn’t that represent payment for services rendered and not a distribution of principal from the Trust? It would represent earned income and would be taxable to the Settlor/ Trustee. The federal Medicaid law is clear in stating that state Trust law is to govern provisions found within Trust documents. The federal government relies on the body of law with respect to Trusts as it has evolved over the past 200 years within each state in the union. There is no Federal law which does not recognize state laws governing Trusts when determining ownership rights, property rights and other legal interests. One way to avoid ever having to defend such a possible attack on the part of MassHealth is to simply limit the Trustee compensation to the income generated by the Trust. In other words, Trustee compensation can only be paid out of income. That being said, by deduction, Trustee compensation cannot be paid from the principal. Therefore, with respect to the Trustee compensation issue, MassHealth cannot argue that the principal of the irrevocable Trust is somehow a countable asset. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Fournier, decided in July of 2021, the Trust document must be read as a whole and there can be no circumstances in which the Settlor of the Trust could receive principal distributions. This case forced MassHealth to significantly reduce its attacks on irrevocable Trusts when no sound legal basis under well-settled Trust law for the attacks exists. Joseph D. Cataldo is an estate planning/elder law attorney, Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Planner, AICPA Personal Financial Specialist and holds a master’s degree in taxation. REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS BUYER1 Chiang, Shian Huey Delaney, Liam Ramos, Wilfredo A Sitakange, Robert BUYER2 Yeh, Koming SELLER1 Caruso, Ellen E Muollo Prudence A Est Randall, Marybeth Sarikhani, Mohsen Leblanc, Robert C Ventola, Jeffrey W Jameei, Aida for Malden in 2025 — grabbed an assist to up their scoring totals. A third former Malden High Tornado standout, freshman Sebastian Zapata Marin, also contributed with solid minutes at defender in both Tuesday’s win, logging many second-half minutes, and in Saturday’s 2-1 win. NECC is back in action at home in its conference opener versus Quincy College at its regular home field at Whittier Tech Vocational High School in Haverhill at 2:30 p.m. Joseph has been quite acMalden’s Sebastian Zapata Marin played some solid defensive minutes in the past two NECC wins. (Courtesy/Maldonian/MHS Yearbook) tive in the scoring column for his new team, as Saturday’s goal was his third of the season, and to that point, the team had scored just five for the season. In that game, Westchester (NY) had taken a 1-0 lead. The anticipation multiplied when Malden’s Martins was the penalty kick designee midway through the second half. The first-year NECC freshman got the job done by driving home the PK shot and giving the Knights the winning margin in the 2-1 win. Malden’s Mike Joseph battles for control of the ball in Saturday’s 2-1 win for Northern Essex Community College. (Courtesy/Maldonian/MHS Yearbook) For Advertising with Results, call The Advocate Newspapers at 617-387-2200 or Info@advocatenews.net Copyrighted material previously published in Banker & Tradesman/The Commercial Record, a weekly trade newspaper. It is reprinted with permission from the publisher, The Warren Group. For a searchable database of real estate transactions and property information visit: www.thewarrengroup.com. SELLER2 ADDRESS 146 Clifton St #6 CITY Malden 35 Mt Washington Ave Malden 16 Floral Ave 141 Pierce St #12 Malden Malden DATE 08.18.26 08.18.26 08.21.26 08.17.26 PRICE 400000 475000 630000 335000
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