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My death benefit nomination under the civil service scheme is to my wife. She has been my wife for 31 years and there are no complications. I would expect the pension and death benefits to go to her, but I do not actually know this for certain. This is because they will be granted at the discretion of the trustees or a... |
When things get complicated, it can cause confusion. To illustrate the point, consider three scenarios based on real examples we have encountered recently. Things really do get this complicated but there is a single question that links them all. |
Anne had previously been married to Barry, but was married to Chris when she passed away. Barry was still in business with Anne. Anne had completed a nomination in respect of Chris but then replaced it with a nomination for Barry. |
Anne was also a bit lax with administration and the handling of property abroad that she jointly owned with Barry. The transfer to her and Chris had not been completed. Chris was not happy. |
Barry claimed Anne had said she would change the nomination in his favour, but Barry had not believed she would. Anne would expect the death benefits to go to Barry as per the nomination. |
Dave and Emma are siblings, and Dave and Frankie are married. But things are not going smoothly. Not only is Dave terminally ill, they have discovered Frankie has been investing in property without telling Dave. |
This is a significant trust issue. There is no time to change the will, but just enough time to put in a nomination for death benefits in favour of Emma. |
Gary died leaving three children from a previous marriage to Harry listed on the nomination form. They describe Gary’s relationship with Harry as ‘partners’. |
A request for Harry’s contact details by the trustees is met with vitriol by the children. Harry and Gary had fallen out. Harry is beyond the pale and Gary would never in a million years have wanted anything to go to Harry. |
Yet the death benefits are paid at the discretion of the scheme. The trustees have no choice but to contact Harry to see if there was any dependency. Gary’s children take exception to this because the will is very specific about what is left to them. |
The common question in all these scenarios is why are the death benefits paid under discretion? The simple answer is they are pensions written under trust and all extra benefits are discretionary. It has been that way since just after the First World War, if not before. The trustee discretion ensures death benefits fro... |
The cost of this IHT benefit is just a bit of administration in the simple cases: you have to gather the information and consider it. But in cases such as those outlined previously, admin costs can quickly mount up. The real cost can be that payments end up going somewhere other than the beneficiary suggested on the no... |
This is a problem from another century, if not another age. Most new members of pensions are being auto-enrolled into personalised savings vehicles, not pooled vehicles where risk and rewards are shared. |
But this could be changed by a simple clause in the Finance Bill that makes all pension death benefits free of IHT. Provider discretion could then be removed. The financial bill clause can have an anti-avoidance provision attached to it so if people increase pension savings to avoid IHT, the carve-out would not apply. |
This will not cost anything because discretionary pension death benefits are not subject to IHT. It would, however, give people certainty that their pension death benefits will actually go to the people they put on the nomination form. It would also remove a whole load of angst for bereaved families and administration ... |
Gov't considering 'Care ISA' to solve crisis, but would it work? |
Dr. Conrad Murray said he should have "walked away" from his famous patient instead of giving him the surgical anesthetic propofol to help him sleep. |
In an interview with the "Today" show's Savannah Guthrie, scheduled to air Thursday and Friday, Murray said he believed he had weaned Michael Jackson off propofol three days before his death. Guthrie asked him why -- even when he felt he shouldn't be giving Jackson the drug -- he didn't leave his $150,000-a-month posit... |
"I should have walked away," Murray said. "But if also I walked away, I would have abandoned a friend." |
He also tried to explain why he didn't call 911 when he found that the singer had stopped breathing, an oversight that one juror said was a significant issue for the deliberating panel. |
"No one is allowed to come upstairs except for Mr. Jackson. His security is not allowed to enter the house," Murray said in response to Guthrie's question why he didn't call 911. |
"You called his bodyguard," Guthrie said in a follow-up question. "Couldn't you have said: Call 911, and meet 'em at the gate?" |
Murray answered: "Call 911" would still require him to call me back. I don't think he would do that, and I'm not about to leave a full explanation on the phone." |
Instead, Murray began giving Jackson CPR. A security guard called for help 20 minutes later. |
A jury on Monday convicted Murray of involuntary manslaughter. He faces a maximum sentence of four years in state prison and a minimum of probation. |
Greta Garbo, Danny Kaye, and yes, Steve McQueen were among the legions of fans of the dorky orthopedic shoes dreamed up by ex-ice skater Alan Murray, who found gold in fallen arches. |
More than 35 years after he died at age 50, Steve McQueen has become to men’s style what a Band Aid is to an adhesive bandage or Kleenex is to tissues. He is metonymically menswear. The actor has become so iconic, it’s easy to forget that he once was just a guy. |
Besides films like Bullitt and The Great Escape, much of McQueen’s myth seems to rest on a series of photographs taken by John Dominis for LIFE magazine in the summer of 1963. For three weeks, Dominis lived with McQueen and his then-wife, the actress and dancer Neile Adams, in their desert home in Palm Springs, Califor... |
With the exception of that last one, he did this all wearing simple but exceedingly cool clothing. Sweatpants, chinos, white sneakers: the holy trinity. In hindsight, it is difficult to discern whether or not this is simply a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Is Steve McQueen cool because of his clothing or is his clo... |
There’s an image, one of the most recognized of McQueen, sitting on a sofa, pointing a .22 caliber pistol. He’s wearing sunglasses, khakis, and a short-sleeve button up. His legs are propped on a coffee table and on his feet a pair of white Keds, sans socks natch. It is through this image that I got to know Neile Adams... |
I was working a piece for Esquire on the evolution of the white sneaker and why men now are content to pay $1,200 for a version of it. Naturally, the journey led me to Palm Springs, California, summer of 1963, couch of Steve McQueen. I had called Neile, now a cabaret singer in Century City—Variety called her act “sensa... |
Steve was waiting for Neile to get ready to go shoot lizards in the backyard, she said. Then, off-handedly, she mentioned that McQueen’s Keds phase was short lived. “Steve had bad feet,” she recalled. “One day Danny Kaye, who also had fallen arches, recommended he get custom-made a pair of Murray Space Shoes. Then that... |
A second later, after I had Googled Murray Space Shoe, I was sure she had misremembered. There’s no way Steve McQueen wore shoes this outlandish. The Murray Space Shoe might be the ugliest shoe in modern history. A cross between a Hobbit foot and a gimp costume, the shoes are made of latex from plaster casts with a str... |
Quickly, the newfangled Space Shoe became the Yeezys of their day. Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Arthur Godfrey and, of course, Danny Kaye became acolytes. In 1954, the Murrays bought a former stable owned by Helen Gould on 58th Street in Manhattan and turned it into what the Village Voice called a “Castle ... |
Through the ’50s and ’60s, business boomed for the Murrays. On the strength of their claims of miracle cures and celebrity endorsements, their footprint expanded. Scores of Murray Space Shoe shops, dealers, and agents opened and the Murrays inaugurated a laboratory in Long Island City. But their rise was not without dr... |
But that’s also not entirely correct. And this leads us to Guinda, California, a tiny speck of a town an hour west of Sacramento. |
See, Murray Space Shoe isn’t dead yet. There’s a man in Guinda, a former walnut and persimmon farmer named Frank Espirella, who bought the rights to Murray Space Shoes from Lucille Marsh Murray in 1979, shortly before she died. [The name, like much else in the unhappy ménage of the Murrays, was a soured love triangle.]... |
Today, Espirella makes about a hundred pairs of Murray Space Shoes a year. Clients are obligated to travel to Guinda so he can make a plaster cast of their feet. Each pair costs around $1,000. “I’m the person of last resort,” he told me. |
As for the rest of the mighty Murray works, “nothing beside remains,” to ape Shelley. The Castle in Space is now a church. The frame of the West 10th Street store bore the name Space Shoe as late as 2004 when, according to the New York Times, it was the setting for nightly uke-i-nannies, or ukelele hootenannies, held b... |
The engineering campus circa 2017 bears little resemblance to what Mary McDowell (BS ’86) trudged through in the ’80s. |
“Looking at the gleaming buildings north of Green now, it is hard to remember that in the not-too-distant past, the engineering campus was pretty much a dump,” says the former Nokia executive and now CEO of Silicon Valley tech company Polycom. |
“I’m pretty sure at least one building in which I took classes was built in the 19th century — and had not aged well. Boneyard Creek was two steps shy of being a Superfund site. |
“And to be there by yourself late at night? Well, that’s a story for a very different type of article. |
“In this era of benign neglect, student leaders had offices in Engineering Hall. I hung out there as part of the Illinois Technograph staff with people that are still dear friends today, one of which was in my wedding. It was a thrill when I became editor my senior year to actually get my own key to the building. We to... |
“The other place where I spent a ton of time my junior year was the library archives. It was the 100th anniversary of the Technograph and we spent weeks and weeks doing research to create the 100th anniversary edition. I think I read almost every issue, looking for trends, fun facts and interesting stories about engine... |
“We also gathered all the names of everyone who had ever worked on the magazine and then tried to contact everyone who was still alive to come to an anniversary party. The party was held in the spring of 1985. We had a decent turnout, including some very old people with fascinating stories. It was a huge amount of work... |
Charmayne Strayhorn, left, Angela Bradley and Hayden Moore About 600 people mingled in the lobby of the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric for "Taste for Life," a fundraising gala for cancer research which is now in its 15th year. Patty Cutchis, event co-chair, had been at the helm for all of them. "Fifteen yea... |
Nearly two decades later, Jim Devellano is frank in his assessment of the most foolish move he ever made as an NHL general manager. |
The decision to trade Adam Oates continues to haunt him. |
"It was the worst trade I ever made," said Devellano, now the senior vice president of the Detroit Red Wings. |
On June 15, 1989, Devellano, then the Red Wings GM, traded Oates and forward Paul MacLean to the St. Louis Blues for forwards Bernie Federko and winger Tony McKegney. |
Jacques Demers, Detroit's coach at the time, felt Federko, a 1,000-point scorer in the NHL and a future Hockey Hall of Famer, would take some of the offensive burden off Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman. |
"We had the chance to pick up a veteran who had played for Jacques in St. Louis," Devellano said. "We thought he would add a leadership element, but we were wrong. Bernie didn't have too much left in the tank." |
Meanwhile, Oates teamed up with Brett Hull in St. Louis, launching both players to the Hall of Fame. |
"He stuck it to us eight times a year," Devellano said. The Blues and Red Wings were Norris Division rivals then. "It made me look like a pretty dumb GM." |
As he set up one goal after another with his uncanny knack for finding open teammates, Oates, who was not selected in the NHL Draft, made the hockey people who didn't think he was worthy of a pick also look quite foolish. |
Among his NHL contemporaries, Wayne Gretzky was The Great One and Mario Lemieux was The Magnificent One. Oates would best be described as The Overlooked One. |
He was unwanted by major junior clubs and instead played Tier II junior hockey in Markham, Ontario, where he had a league-leading 105 assists and 159 points for the Waxers in 1981-82. |
Still, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, was the only NCAA team to pursue him. |
"I couldn't get any other school to look at me," Oates said. |
The native of Weston, Ontario, played three seasons at RPI and signed a free agent contract with Detroit on June 28, 1985. Since the draft era began in 1963, only Gretzky (2,857) had more points than Oates (1,420) among undrafted NHL players. Only three centers in NHL history -- Gretzky (1,963), Ron Francis (1,249) and... |
"To me, he is the most underrated player that ever played the game," Hull said. "Besides the obvious, Wayne Gretzky, I think he's the smartest player that ever played the game. |
"He loved to pass the puck and was extraordinary gifted at passing the puck." |
Like most youngsters, Oates was heavily influenced on his sporting path by advice from his father, but David Oates' words of wisdom to his son came from watching a different sport. |
"My dad is British and he was a soccer player," Oates said. "He grew up watching [Sir] Stanley Matthews, who was a legend over there, a Gretzky over there." |
Actually, it sounds more like Matthews was the Oates of English soccer, a brilliant player known for his pinpoint passes and innate ability to make those around him better. |
"My father told me, 'If you can be unselfish, your teammates will like you,'" Oates said. "It became my role, becoming a playmaker out of that." |
It's safe to say his teammates liked him. A lot. |
From the beginning of the 1990-91 season until Feb. 6, 1992, the day before Oates was traded to the Boston Bruins, Oates assisted on 71 of Hull's 140 goals (51 percent). |
"We had such great chemistry on and off the ice," Hull said of himself and Oates. "I don't know, it was like a quarterback and a receiver where he just knows where he's going to be. |
"That's the way we were." |
Hull and Oates, as they became known, made beautiful music together on the ice. |
"At the time, Brett and I took off," Oates said. "The year he scored 86 (1990-91) was just magical. Every single night, wherever we went he scored a goal, two goals. He got four hat tricks. |
"We hit it off as buddies and understood each other. The chemistry was just excellent." |
The 90 assists by Oates during that 1990-91 season are still a Blues single-season record. |
"I played in an era of unbelievable players," former Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic said. "Wayne Gretzky was the best to play the game, but it was Adam Oates for playmaking. |
"Adam and Brett, the magic and chemistry they had, he made everyone around him better. He was one of the best playmakers of all time." |
After being traded to the Bruins, Oates had 142 points in 1992-93 to finish third in the Art Ross Trophy race. His 97 assists led teh NHL and were second in Boston history (Bobby Orr had 102 in 1970-71). |
Oates topped the League with 69 assists in 2000-01 with the Washington Capitals and did it for a third time with 64 in 2001-02, which he split between Washington and the Philadelphia Flyers. |
Oates (two), Gretzky (13), Lemieux (four), Orr (two) and Joe Thornton (two) are the only players in NHL history to have more than one 90-assist season. |
"That's pretty good company to keep," Oates said. "I don't mind being on that list at all." |
All this from a guy viewed as too small and too slow to make it in the NHL. |
"I was a Toronto kid, kind of a late bloomer, and scouts look at big kids, fast kids," Oates said. "I slipped through the cracks. |
"It allowed me to go to college." |
At RPI, Oates led the Engineers to the NCAA championship in 1984-85 and set school single-season records with 60 assists and 91 points. His 150 career assists are also a school record and he was a two-time First-Team All-America selection. |
"He's a legend at RPI," said former NHL forward Joe Juneau, who followed Oates to the Engineers and later was his teammate in Boston and Washington. "He was one of the best passers in the game. |
"A lot of people overlook him, because he was a different kind of player, not flashy like Lemieux or Gretzky. But I think that anybody who knows hockey knows that in his day, Adam Oates was one of the top five players in the game." |
Oates believes he would have never had NHL success without both the life and hockey lessons he learned during his college days. |
"Going to RPI was an important time for me," Oates said. "I was too old to play juniors. I was a young, cocky kid coming out of Tier II. I was fortunate to have the time for my game to mature. I got to play 19 years in the league. I was very fortunate. I could have gone in another direction." |
Oates perhaps could have fashioned a life in Canada's other national game. He was a high-scoring junior star in the Ontario Lacrosse Association but gave up the sport in 1984 to focus on hockey. |
After signing with Detroit in 1985, Oates was slow to evolve as an NHL player. His style of game didn't seem to fit into the grinding, checking system preferred by Demers. |
His best season in Detroit was his last; Oates had 78 points in 1988-89. |
"Adam played for us for four years," Devellano said. "He was OK, but we thought he should have gone beyond where he was." |
He did exactly that after leaving the Red Wings, going on to play in the Stanley Cup Final with Washington in 1998 and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003. |
Once Oates got over the shock of the move from Detroit, it proved to be the wake-up call he needed. |
"When I got traded I was really upset," Oates admitted. "It was heartbreaking. Detroit was my first team. You're sentimental. You don't think you're ever going to leave. (Red Wings owner) Mr. [Mike] Ilitch was fantastic the way he treated the team. |
"But it gave me the chance to go to St. Louis and play with Brett and really establish myself in the League. I think it jump-started my career." |
All the way to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where Oates was inducted in 2012. |
After stints coaching the Capitals and New Jersey Devils, Oates works as a roving skills consultant and lists NHL players Steven Stamkos, Alex Ovechkin, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter among his clients. |
Even in retirement, the world's best hockey players can count on Oates for an assist. |
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