Posts Tagged ‘Estate Tax’
Election Year Antics
Welcome to politics in 2012! Did you sign up for what we’re getting in America? In many ways, nobody is happy with the landscape. Most of us—Independents, Democrats, and Republicans alike—are unhappy (or even disgusted) with politics in general. It’s at the point of being most disgruntled, however, that we need to pay the most attention. It’s the point at which real transformation can occur. Pushing through the urge to disengage and through the resistance to be involved is difficult, but if we don’t all take responsibility for it, then we’ll end up in a place that we don’t want to be in. Think about it like this: Who is taking responsibility for our current situation? The answer is that we should all be taking responsibility, whether we played our role actively are passively. More Reasons To Be Involved Than Ever Before Even if the typical issues like taxes, the economy, social matters, job creation, globalization, and fiscal policy aren’t enough to motivate you to be involved, there is one issue that will probably get you off the couch this election season: YOUR MONEY! On December 31st of ...
Professional Guidance Through a Complex Process
There is a widespread misconception that estate planning is simply a method of directing one’s assets to designated beneficiaries in the event of death. That’s simply too narrow of a view. Estate planning is necessary—crucial in fact--in the event that you become incapacitated or otherwise need a loved one to manage your finances. This can happen, for example, if you are about to undergo surgery with a prolonged recovery period. In addition, proper estate planning may be necessary in order to reduce an estate tax burden. Protecting your property is complex. The amount of money and other assets you have will determine the type of planning best suited to your needs, so the first step of creating any estate plan is taking a thorough inventory. Depending on your needs, the management of your wealth can involve the creation of revocable living trusts, wills, lifetime gifts, and life estates. The assets that need to be identified and evaluated when creating your estate planning strategy include investments, real property, insurance policies, and personal effects. The bottom line is that you want to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your ...
The Ins and Outs of a Qualified Personal Residence Trust
The possibility of facing estate taxes has left many people looking for ways to minimize the tax burden on their heirs. Trusts… Annual gifts… Charitable donations… These are just a few of the estate planning tools available to design your estate in such a way that you lessen the amount of money Uncle Sam takes from your beneficiaries. One more option is the formation of a Qualified Personal Residence Trust. If the value of your estate is high enough to be subject to estate taxes, a Qualified Personal Residence Trust (or QPRT) is an excellent way to minimize federal gift taxes and lessen the estate tax burden. Here’s what you need to know before you opt for a QPRT: What Exactly Is A QPRT? Simply put, a QPRT is a type of irrevocable trust you transfer your home into while still retaining the right to live there for a specified period of time. While you still ...
Estate Planning Trends to Watch Out For
The number of issues that can have an adverse effect on your estate plan can be overwhelming… Even the best laid plans can be rendered null and void by one piece of legislation. If you have an estate plan in place and you haven’t looked at it in a while, you could have provisions in place that are at best, pointless and at worst, can cost your estate a lot of money. Regardless of the value of your estate, you should at least have a will and you need to take steps to ensure that your will legally does what you intended. The best course of action is to maintain an ongoing relationship with a good estate planning attorney to make sure that you’re keeping all your paperwork in order and staying apprised of issues that can hurt you in the long run. Just to give you an idea of how quickly things can change, here are a few trends you need to keep your eye on: 1. State Tax Increases The federal government isn’t the only one that’s going broke. State governments are facing serious funding shortfalls ...
Idaho legal news by Snake River Law
- Not The End But A New Beginning May 4, 2012In the next two months, those words will ring out in high school graduation ceremonies all across the country. And if you have a high school senior in your home, then chances are that things are about to change dramatically, both for you and your high school senior. There are a few things that you […]admin
- QTIP Trusts April 20, 2012A QTIP trust, or Qualified Terminable Interest Property trust, is a special type of A/B trust. Have I lost you yet? Not to worry… keep reading! Let’s start at the beginning. An A/B trust is a marital trust system comprised of two trusts, an A trust and a B trust. The A trust is typically […]admin
- More About Your Estate Plan April 13, 2012The revocable living trust is the basic building block of most estate plans. It’s the tool that allows your estate to avoid the expense, time consumption, and uncertainty of probate court, and it is the tool that can hold just about any of your assets. While revocable living trusts are ubiquitous in the world of […]admin
- Election Year Antics February 8, 2012Welcome to politics in 2012! Did you sign up for what we’re getting in America? In many ways, nobody is happy with the landscape. Most of us—Independents, Democrats, and Republicans alike—are unhappy (or even disgusted) with politics in general. It’s at the point of being most disgruntled, however, that we need to pay the most […]admin
- Assets Without Physical Form November 8, 2011There’s been a lot written about estate planning in recent years. That’s partially because federal laws on the taxation of estates have changed a lot in the past few years, and they will be up for discussion by Congress again before the end of 2012. Anything being discussed by Congress gets a considerable amount of […]admin
- Professional Guidance Through a Complex Process October 18, 2011There is a widespread misconception that estate planning is simply a method of directing one’s assets to designated beneficiaries in the event of death. That’s simply too narrow of a view. Estate planning is necessary—crucial in fact–in the event that you become incapacitated or otherwise need a loved one to manage your finances. This can […]admin
- Three Reasons for Having a Living Trust October 5, 2011There are a multitude of reasons to have a living trust. We can’t begin to cover them all, but we will touch on three reasons very briefly here. Reason #1: Protecting Property for Certain Beneficiaries When most of us think about estate planning, we think about passing our property to our family and […]admin
- Estate Planning and Business Succession September 22, 2011Most people hear the words “Estate Planning” and automatically think about wills, trusts, tax issues, and probate. The reality is that estate planning is about much more than just figuring out how to pass on your hard-earned assets. We’ve written a lot about the ways that estate planning benefits families. Today we’re going to talk […]admin
- A Hypothetical, But It Does Happen August 4, 2011Today we’re going to discuss a situation that happens all the time. It’s a situation that almost nobody thinks about, unless you’re an estate planning attorney, but it does occur often enough to talk about. Consider the following hypothetical: A woman, let’s call her Elizabeth, has passed away. Elizabeth is survived by four adult sons. […]admin
- Beyond the Allocation of Assets July 14, 2011Estate planning is about much more than just deciding who gets what in the event of your death. It’s also about avoiding unnecessary taxes, and in the event that you have minor children, making sure that custody of your children doesn’t go to the state. Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s simply not the case […]admin
