Notes From All Over -- The Delayed Sunday Edition -- May 30, 2021

Indy 500: 135,000 sellout crowd expected. Largest unmasked crowd to date? I think the first major unmasked sports event coming out of the pandemic was the PGA Championship, won by Phil Mickelson. Later: history is made. Four-time winner Castroneves.

Rewards: lotteries and prizes for doing the right thing -- getting the vaccine -- seems to be inappropriate.  From The Los Angeles Times this week:

... the number of vaccines administered each day in Los Angeles has dropped by almost 50% from its high in April.

In Long Beach, they’re trying to counter amorphous (sic) resistance by giving newly vaccinated people free tickets to the Aquarium of the Pacific and a chance to win a Nintendo Switch gaming console — a ploy intended to persuade unvaccinated young men to roll up their sleeves. 

In Los Angeles, those getting vaccinated have a chance to win Lakers season tickets. 

In Cleveland, dropping your resistance to the vaccine can make you a millionaire. The state of Ohio is using federal coronavirus relief funds to pay for five weekly lotteries that will each net one newly vaccinated winner a million-dollar prize. 

And California announced on Thursday [May 27, 2021] a grab bag of incentives, including grocery gift cards to those who complete their inoculations, and the chance for 10 vaccinated residents to win $1.5 million apiece.

Andy Serwer: his morning brief over at Yahoo!Finance is one of the better business / finance columns out there. I don't link it or read it every day, but more often than not, the column has impressed me. Most recently: the bull market in news is over. Now what?

G. E. Smith: who knew? At YouTube.

Estate planning: this may be the best thing I read this past week. 

In case you can't get past the paywall, this is the loophole, and it's a big one:

The owner of each 529 account, usually parents or grandparents, must designate a single beneficiary. But they can easily move money between beneficiaries as long as they are in the same family.

“It is absolutely a loophole,” says Leo Marte, a Huntersville, N.C., financial advisor. “You can move money across generations without taxes as long as you don’t hit gift tax exclusions.”

Example:

Creating a lasting education fund for your family. Former fighter pilot Brian O’Neill of Niceville, FL, retired from the Air Force last year as a colonel. 

He and his wife managed to save more than $500,000 in 529 accounts funded by military pilot bonuses, regular annual contributions, and gifts from relatives. 

He has a daughter going to college in 2022, but she probably won’t touch the 529 plan money. 

Her college may be paid by GI Bill benefits, which O’Neill has the right to pass on to his child, or she may tap a Florida scholarship if she goes to a state school. He has a second daughter, but he thinks she’ll end up spending only a small portion of the money.

And it's fairly hard for most Americans to the gift tax exclusions:

You can contribute up to $15,000 (the annual gift tax limit) per beneficiary per year to a 529 plan. However, the law permits each account owner to pay up to five years’ contribution upfront without triggering gift taxes. That means a couple between them can contribute up to $150,000 per beneficiary in one fell swoop. And they can do it for multiple people.

“There’s no limit on the number of 529s you can have,” says Stephanie Trexler, a Grand Rapids, Mich., financial advisor. “If you have 10 grandchildren, you can open a 529 account for each grandchild.”