Hybrid Dinner Meeting
Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 5:00PM
Brightview Canton
125 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021
Registration 5:00 - 6:00PM
Dinner 6:00 - 7:00PM
Program: 7:00PM
***This program will be streamed live and recorded.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
Naming IRA Beneficiary Designations
One beneficiary designation. Multiple planning philosophies. Endless opportunities for unintended consequences.
It’s a showdown at MassNAELA this June as two of Massachusetts’ leading estate planning attorneys take on one of the profession’s most debated drafting questions: Who should inherit the IRA?
For some planners, the answer is simple: Name the surviving spouse as primary beneficiary and the children as contingent beneficiaries. For others, flexibility reigns supreme, with the Credit Shelter/QTIP Trust waiting in the wings as contingent beneficiary protection. But when does a “safe” designation create unexpected tax consequences, administrative headaches, or planning disasters? And what happens when the estate gets involved? This showdown features:
The Good: Strategic spouse designations, flexibility, and thoughtful planning opportunities
The Bad: Common drafting pitfalls, unintended consequences, and coordination failures
The Ugly: Post-SECURE Act complications, and beneficiary designations gone sideways
Before you ride off into the sunset with your next “standard” beneficiary designation, join us for an evening of practical drafting insight, planning flexibility, and cautionary tales from the frontier of post-SECURE Act estate planning.
Presenters
An attorney at Cushing & Dolan, P.C., Todd E. Lutsky handles legal issues of trusts and estate planning in the Greater Boston area. This includes representation for the following legal matters:
1) Elder Law Planning, including Irrevocable Medicaid trusts and the application process for Medicaid eligibility, representing clients at fair hearings, and all aspects of elder law planning.
2) Estate and Gift Tax Planning, including but not limited to, the use of revocable trusts, joint revocable trusts, personal residence trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, New Hampshire domestic asset protection trusts, and all aspects of estate planning.
3) Business Succession Planning including, use of limited liability companies, family limited partnerships, deferred compensations, buy sell agreements, and sale of assets to defective irrevocable trusts.
A former tax attorney for Price Waterhouse LLP, Mr. Lutsky is now a member of the National Aging In Place Council, the Boston Estate Planning Council, and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. Admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, he has almost three decades of experience, is a current lecturer for Boston University School of Law’s Graduate Tax Program and has published in the Estate Planning Journal. He has also been named five stars wealth manager 2015 and 2016 and selected to super lawyers 2017-2025.
Mr. Lutsky began co-hosting a radio talk show called “Money Matters” in 1998 and answered questions on estate and gift tax planning, elder law, and asset protection planning matters. He then moved on to host his own radio show “The Legal Exchange with Todd Lutsky” where he uses real cases from around the country and real life stories to educate the public one story at a time on important legal matters. His show focuses on estate, gift, and income tax planning matters, elder law planning including, Medicaid eligibility and asset protection planning matters. Finally, he most recently began appearing on the Financial Exchange Radio Show in a segment called “Ask Todd” where he takes live caller questions on anything estate, gift, income tax, or elder law planning related. For a complete listing of stations, times, and podcasts, go to legalexchangeshow.com.
Mr. Lutsky is regularly asked to speak for the National Business Institute, the Massachusetts Association of Accountants, the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Elder Law Institute, the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, the Foundation for Continuing Education, and the Boston Tax Institute. He also writes extensively on estate and elder law planning topics and prepares written materials for all speaking engagements.
In 1991, Mr. Lutsky earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Toledo College of Law. He then attended Boston University School of Law where he obtained a master’s degree in taxation.
Mr. Lutsky is a lecturer at Boston University Law School.
Daniel M. Surprenant is a Managing Partner and an owner of Surprenant, Beneski & Nunes, P.C., an estate planning and elder law firm serving Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and the Islands with offices in New Bedford, Easton, Plymouth and Hyannis. Dan focuses his practice in the areas of estate planning and elder law, including estate tax planning, special needs planning, Medicaid pre-planning, Medicaid crisis planning and representation at Fair Hearing appeals as well as appeals to the Superior Court. A dedicated leader within the elder law community, Dan is a Past President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (Mass NAELA), serving as president in 2015. He has also been recognized by the chapter as Member of the Year (2013) and Outstanding Program Committee Member (2012) for his extensive work organizing educational programs for fellow attorneys. He is a regular panelist in ongoing education for attorneys, including for Mass NAELA, MBA and MCLE. Dan is certified as an Elder Law Attorney (CELA) by the National Elder Law Foundation. He has been named to Boston Magazine’s list of Super Lawyers in Estate Planning each year since 2014.
Prior to dedicating his career to elder law and estate planning in 2006, Dan served as an Assistant District Attorney in Bristol County in the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit in the Superior Courts, and then worked as a civil litigator. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University Law School. He is also a past president of the Bristol County Bar Association and a recipient of the First Justices' Award for Pro Bono Publico Excellence.
If you have any questions, contact Executive Director, Clarence Richardson, at Clarence@MassNAELA.com or (617) 566-5640