What kind of attorney should I look for specifically? Is there a certain specialty that deals with trustee misconduct? And roughly what should I expect this to cost? I'm worried about spending a ton on legal fees when the trust assets have already been diminished.

You want an attorney who specializes in trust and estate litigation specifically - not just any estate planning attorney. Many estate planners focus primarily on creating trusts and wills but have limited experience with litigation when things go wrong. Look for terms like "trust litigation," "fiduciary litigation," or "trust disputes" on their website or firm description. Ideally, find someone who has experience specifically with trustee removal cases and financial misconduct. Regarding costs, most trust litigation attorneys work on an hourly basis, typically $300-$500 per hour depending on your location and the attorney's experience. Many states allow for attorney fees to be paid from the trust itself when the litigation benefits the trust (like removing a dishonest trustee), but this usually happens after the case concludes. You might need to pay upfront and seek reimbursement later.

This is an important point. My family went through something similar, and we found that once we filed a police report, the trustee suddenly became much more cooperative with returning funds. The district attorney in our county had a financial crimes unit that took it quite seriously.

Does FreeTaxUSA still offer completely free federal filing? I thought they charged for state returns?

FreeTaxUSA does offer completely free federal filing for any tax situation, which is why I like it. You're right about state returns though - they do charge around $15 for those. For me it was worth paying that small amount to avoid the headaches I was having with FFFF. They also have a much better error checking system that tells you exactly what's wrong and where, rather than the vague error messages from FFFF. The interface is way more intuitive too.

Thanks for the tip! I was using Firefox and kept getting errors. Switched to Edge and it worked on the first try!

Good point about the life estate! My family got caught in that exact situation. Does anyone know if improvements made by the grandmother after transfer would count toward the basis? Like if she paid for a new roof in 2018?

If your grandmother truly gifted the entire property and your aunt is the legal owner, then any improvements made after the transfer would be added to your aunt's basis - but only if your aunt paid for them. If grandmother paid for the roof after no longer owning the house, that would generally be considered a gift of the improvement cost. However, if there was an informal arrangement where grandmother retained some ownership interest (like a life estate), the situation gets more complicated. This is actually why documenting who pays for what becomes really important in family property situations.

Not all quitclaim deeds are treated differently for basis purposes. The type of deed doesn't determine whether it's a gift or not - the consideration (payment) does. A quitclaim just means the grantor isn't guaranteeing they have good title to transfer, but it can still be either a gift or a sale depending on whether money changed hands.

Do penalties continue to stack up forever? At what point would they stop adding more penalties?

The failure-to-pay penalty stops when it reaches 25% of the unpaid tax. So if you owe $5,000 in tax, the maximum penalty would be $1,250. However, interest continues indefinitely until the debt is fully paid. One thing I learned through my payment plan is that the IRS applies payments to penalties first, then interest, then the tax principal. This means if you're only making minimum payments, a larger portion goes to penalties and interest rather than reducing your actual tax debt.

I submitted an OIC last year and it got accepted! Settled $27k of tax debt for about $8k. But it's definitely not for everyone - you have to prove genuine financial hardship. They look at your assets, income, expenses... basically everything. And the process took almost 9 months.

That sounds interesting but I've never heard of a spousal IRA. How does that work exactly? Does it come with the same tax benefits as a regular IRA?

A spousal IRA works just like a regular IRA - same contribution limits, same tax benefits. The difference is that normally you need earned income to contribute to an IRA, but the spousal IRA is an exception that allows a working spouse to contribute to an IRA for a non-working spouse. For 2024, you could contribute up to $7,000 to a spousal IRA for your wife ($8,000 if she's 50 or older). This gives you an additional tax deduction if you choose a Traditional IRA, or tax-free growth if you choose a Roth IRA. You'll need to file jointly to use this benefit, and your earned income must be at least equal to the total contributions you make to both your IRA and her spousal IRA.

This is a really good point. Do you use any specific tax software that made it easy to compare the two options?