The core of Estate Planning is the life of each human being. Do you recall the process that ultimately led to the completion of your estate plan? You asked a question or voiced a concern about estate planning. Do I need a living trust? Will my estate pay a lot in taxes at my death?
A DOZEN DOCUMENTS YOU NEED BEFORE YOU DIE It is no longer enough to just sign some papers establishing an estate plan. You also have to make your heirs aware of your estate plan and advise them where the documents can be located. Also some of the country’s largest insurers are failing to pay out
Modest estates: New tax planning considerations The landscape has changed for estate planning in the past several years since the gift and estate tax was set at 40% and the lifetime exemption was upped to $5,450,000 in 2016. Now many modest estates will have either no estate tax or a very nominal estate tax, therefore,
ESTATE PLANNING FOR SECOND MARRIAGES In our world of ever-changing laws, estate planning has become increasingly complex. This is especially true in the context of second marriages. Children from a prior marriage, strained family relationships and rights and restrictions imposed by law illustrate why the complexity of estate planning for second marriages is never simple.
There are three basic forms of joint ownership: Tenancy in common; joint tenancy; and tenancy by the entirety. Anyone who owns property jointly should be familiar with the consequences of joint ownership. A tenancy in common exists when two or more persons own an undivided interest in the whole property. There is no right of
The IRS recently announced the inflation-adjusted items for 2016, including gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax amounts. The following adjustments should be considered in your estate and gift planning: • The gift tax annual exclusion for 2016 remains $14,000 (and is increased to $148,000 for gifts to a non-U.S. citizen spouse). Married couples who elect
Bequeathing a large amount of money to multiple generations of your family has long been a controversial issue; but this approach to wills and trusts is suddenly getting more popular. The 2010 Tax Relief Act made it possible to fund $5 million-plus trusts per person without incurring as big a tax bill as in the
Time may be running out for one of the biggest tax breaks for Americans: the chance to gift up to $5.12 million to heirs tax-free and then pay “only” 35 percent gift tax on a gift above that. The break is scheduled to expire on December 31, 2012. The original $5 million limit was increased
If you are still unsure as to whether a trust is for you, there’s one simple question to answer: Is your net worth $100,000 or more? If it is, now is the time to talk to your estate planning attorney. There are a few other things to consider, of course, and there are many, many
Tax attorneys work daily to create income tax schemes that wind up being incomprehensible to most people. Along with this, accountants devise incomprehensible rules and regulations regarding the gift and estate tax. Luckily, the inconsistencies between income tax rules (one part of the Internal Revenue Code) and the gift and estate tax rules (a different