In our state statute for UTMA accounts it is VERY specific in that it reads that in order for a UTMA account to be created that is must be "registered in the name of the transferor, an adult other than the transferor, or a trust company, followed in substance by the words : "as custodian for (name of minor) under the Oklahoma Uniform Transfers to Minors Act". My question is that our document processor titles our UTMA accounts Minor Child, a minor under the UTMA by Joe Parent, custodian. Is this correct? What about other versions like. . . Minor Child, a minor Joe Parent, custodian under UTMA? By the way our documentation program as well as our processing system uses the first name and SSN for tax purposes. What do you think?

I'm in Pennsylvania. We title our accounts as

John Doe Beneficiary PAUTMA
Mary Doe Custodian

John Doe has the Tax Owner and Beneficiary roles on the account and Mary Doe has the Custodian and Authorized Signer roles.

We manually title the account instead of generating the title

The "in substance" found in the model language of the UTMA is taken as a indication that you have some discretion in arranging the words. Personally, I think the fact that the owner is a minor is fairly obvious and need not be repeated in the title. Beyond that, placing the child's name first in the account title has no effect on the legal relationship, but facilitates the IRS' name/TIN matching process for information reporting.

Working Girl's rendition of the title reflects my preferences.

Here's another question on this. Does the minor sign the signature card? The "bankers systems" sig card I have printed out the minor's name, but the minor isn't a signor???? What's your (anyone's) take on this?

The beneficiary has no access to our UTMA accounts; only the custodian.

There may be extra steps you should be taking on your platform system to create the signature card properly.

That's the same. I don't have access to how to set the accounts up on the platform. I just print them out. I wrote on this one - UTMA account (no signature needed)

Our system automatically assigns the rolls for the tax owner as

tax owner
tax reported
tax owner signer


we take off the tax owner signer and have the custodian's roles as

custodian
authorized signer


our deposit agreements have the full title but only have a signature for the authorized signer

We do not have the minor sign the sig card as they do not have transaction authority. We also use bankers system and we just leave the minor's signature area blank. The parent signs as custodian and they also certify the minor's TIN.

Thank you. That makes sense, since the adult is responsible for the minor.

smcfarland and mck41:

If you are using the bankers systems Arta system, you can prevent the signature prompt by unchecking a box in the main setup area. Check it out.

Thanks, Kip- we'll have to give that a try.