Estate taxes affect less than 1% of United States residents. While many people accumulate meaningful wealth during their lifetime, few amass truly significant fortunes. Yet, through sheer luck or shrewd investments, your estate could face taxation in the future. If...
As part of your estate plan, you may have considered making a large gift to a loved one while you are still alive. There are many reasons to do this. Perhaps you want to help someone in need, invest in a loved one’s business or just enjoy their enjoyment of a piece of...
Fights over a loved one’s estate all too often overshadow a family’s ability to grieve their loss. In fact, family conflict is the biggest worry in estate planning today, according to recent survey of professionals at the Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate...
For many people who have never gone through the process, divorce might seem like it should be as simple as getting married. In practice, the two events have almost nothing in common. They both come with legal consequences, but that is where the similarity ends....
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration recently issued a report concerning how estate and gift tax returns are being processed. The report highlights substantial discrepancies in how the IRS handled the examination process. One of the issues covered in...
New York's estate tax scheme has remained the same for years, but that has just changed dramatically. The newly enacted state budget includes changes to estate and gift taxes that are designed to allow New York to "catch up" to the federal estate tax regime. US...
Estate planning, in the early stages, can be daunting, especially if you have assets that need to be divided among several loved ones. Even if you don't have a lot of money, you still need an estate plan. The truth is that if you own a home or have any real or...
While a necessary evil, most New York residents still loathe paying taxes. In fact many people spend their whole lives attempting to avoid paying taxes on accumulated wealth. Unfortunately, even when an individual dies, they cannot escape paying taxes as tax burdens...
One of the questions clients and colleagues have asked most frequently this year is what is going on with the estate tax? Well, New York's estate tax isn't going anywhere. The first $1 million of assets is exempt, as is anything passing to a surviving spouse (with a...
My evidence for this is completely anecdotal, but it seems like more and more of my clients these days are considering moving out of state for estate tax reasons. New York has an unlimited marital deduction for estate taxes, which means that assets passing from one...
