Ugh! UTMAs and UGMAs

I’m not sure why anyone has these accounts anymore, but they do. I mostly see them during divorces, where one spouse has tried to transfer money to the kids in hopes of keeping it out of the divorce joint property. Technically, these accounts are considered property of the children (not marital), but as with so many other financial issues, it’s largely up to what the attorneys are able to negotiate.

Funding these accounts is a pretty poor idea in most cases, however. What you’re doing is putting all the money in the kid’s name: they’re entitled to it at 18 to do whatever they want with it, and all the earnings are taxed at the parents’ rate. It used to be that as long as earnings stayed below a certain amount, the earnings were taxed at the kid’s rate so it was once a decent strategy to avoid some tax, as long as you could trust your kid not to burn through it by the time they were 18 and two months.

That tax dodge evaporated years ago, but somehow these accounts are still hanging around. Unless you’re trying to shaft your spouse, or have a child actor who’s earned the money themselves but needs some supervision, I don’t think there are many good reasons to have such an account.  They’re considered 100% the property of the child for college financial aid determinations, also.

How can you get the money out of it? The account has to be used for the benefit of the child (once funded, it’s their money), but as long as you can prove that’s how you used it, you’re fine. You’ll have to pay taxes on any gains from the sale of investments, but it’s unlikely the IRS will check up on how the money itself was spent—it’s your kid that could sue you, and hopefully that won’t be a factor.

Once upon a time I had such an account for my daughter, when the taxation was still favorable. I liked it way back then because there was no obligation to spend it on college, and I was certain my brilliant kid would get a full ride scholarship. Ha-ha. Obviously that was before I was a financial planner. We never did accumulate much in college savings in the account, being dunderheads at the time, and I eventually cashed it in to purchase her harp. She hasn’t sued me yet.

Probably the easiest way to clean out the account, besides covering tuition, music lessons, instruments, sports equipment, computers…is to move the money into a 529 plan. If you have significant gains, you’ll have to pay taxes (now playing world’s smallest violin) because 529 deposits have to be in cash. At least the (new) investment will be growing tax free.

If your child has actual earned income, you can also deposit some of the funds into a Roth IRA (up to $5,500/year depending on their earned income). They can withdraw money for college with no early withdrawal penalty, but they will need to pay taxes on any earnings withdrawn. Although they own the account once they’re adults, the tax and withdrawal penalties may slow them up a little. Also, $10,000 can be used as a down payment on a first time home purchase.

For some odd reason, most of these lingering UTMAs are also invested in savings accounts, where they’re earning practically zero for years now. I think they’re just places where people thought they were going to park some cash for college, then mostly forgot about them.  So, if you still have these accounts, resurrect them and put them to work for your kids. College is going to take whatever you can scrape together.

In case you’re wondering what these letters stand for, UTMA is Uniform Transfer to Minors Act and UGMA is Uniform Gift.