Thank you. I will be sure to include her CA refund as income. I have read the trust, and it is no longer a grantor's trust as my mom has passed. It only became a grantor's trust when I became successor trust several years ago when my father was found incapable and my mother resigned from the trust. At that point, the trust received a new EIN, and I was trustee. I started filing 1041s for the EIN as grantor's trust and continued to report all income under my parents SSNs, BAU. The trust is now a complex trust as it has distributed all assets, and will now file what I certainly hope to be the last 1041.
I obtained an irrevocable trust EIN, but I never moved the assets and simply distributed them to beneficiaries from the EIN that was in place since I became successor trustee (several years ago, when my father was found incapable, and my mother resigned as trustee). I was looking to avoid the administrative hassle, given that I did it before when I became trustee (I moved everything from their SSNs into the EIN at that time). I read that it is possible to do this although the accounting can be hairy although it seems to me that the accounting is even more hairy if you move everything to yet another EIN and now you have two EINs and an SSN that have to be dealt with.
But at this point, what am I supposed to do with the irrevocable trust EIN that never had any assets moved to it? All the income generated was under the old revocable trust EIN and is now completely distributed directly to beneficiaries. I am a 75% beneficiary and my half brother a 25%. Neither of us want to incur a lot of expenses, and finding a trustworthy CPA with trust knowledge is difficult work in itself. Same issue but worse with lawyers. I found out that my parents' lawyer ended up getting formally reprimanded by the CA bar for overcharging. And my parents were definitely among his overcharged clients. I've been doing these taxes for years - I feel like it really shouldn't be that complicated. It was $6000 just to make me trustee 8 years ago - no actual trust changes.
You mentioned that I don't need to go with the Sec 645 to do a fiscal year trust (9/16/20 - 8/31/21), but I can't find any documentation stating this. In fact, everything points to the Sec 645 election.
Thank you.
