Retirements Assets: IRAs, 401(k)s, and Best Practices to Manage your Estate

Vanessa L. Kanaga | 

Vanessa Kanaga is a seasoned attorney with nearly two decades of experience specializing in estate planning. She earned her J.D. from Cornell Law School and holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Wichita State University, as well as an Advanced Professional Certificate from New York University School of Law. Vanessa began her legal career at Milbank LLP and Moses & Singer LLP in New York before returning to her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, to practice at Hinkle Law Firm LLC.

In 2013, Vanessa embraced an exciting opportunity to work with her mentor, former Milbank partner Jonathan Blattmachr, at InterActive Legal, a technology company offering automated drafting solutions for estate planning and elder law attorneys. In her eventual role as CEO, she successfully guided the company’s transformation into an online service provider and navigated the new wave of AI-based technology.

Although she enjoyed her role as CEO, Vanessa missed working with clients, and in 2024 returned to private practice in her new beloved home of Phoenix, Arizona. Vanessa is licensed in Arizona, New York, and Kansas.

Sahri Zeger | Cohn Reznick’s

Sahri D. Zeger, JD leads Cohn Reznick’s Trust & Estate group. She has more than 20 years of experience as a tax attorney and trusted advisor to high-networth individuals and successful business owners. In this role, she provides expertise in address the wealth preservation, estate planning, and business succession goals of our private clients, developing sophisticated tax strategies and multi-generational estate plans to meet their business, family, and charitable goals.

Sahri has comprehensive technical knowledge of estate and gift reporting rules, as well as extensive experience in identifying exposure points. She is based in the Boston office. Before joining Cohn Reznick, Sahri practiced as an attorney in Chicago-based boutique tax practice, which focused on tax compliance for closely held business owners and family groups, fiduciary planning, estate, trust, private foundations, and gift tax services.

Session I – Key Strategies for Managing Retirement Assets and Estate Planning | 1:00pm – 3:10pm

• Tax treatment of retirement accounts
  • Understand the tax treatment of these assets, including the differences between traditional IRAs/401(k)s and Roth IRAs
• Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
  • Learn the rules for account owners and beneficiaries of inherited IRAs

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

• Non-tax issues
  • Explore non-tax topics such as creditor protection to consider when planning for retirement benefits
• Trusts and retirement assets
  • Gain insights into structuring trusts to optimize inherited retirement benefits

Break | 3:10pm – 3:20pm

Session II – Trusts as Beneficiaries of Retirement Accounts | 3:20pm – 4:20pm

• Naming a trust as beneficiary of a retirement account
• Types of beneficiaries of retirement accounts
• SECURE Act implications for trusts as retirement account beneficiaries
• Qualifying as a see-through trust
• Conduit trusts and accumulation trusts
• Non-see-through trusts
• Choosing between conduit and accumulation trusts based on estate planning goals