One of the cool things about having a blog is looking at “the stats.” The stats are the internal analytics of the blog, where I can see how many people have visited, what articles they read, and if they came here from Google or another search engine, what terms they were searching for. It’s always… Read More
What’s Going On with the Estate Tax?
I am getting a lot of questions from clients and friends about what the status is of the estate tax. Additionally, a lot of people coming to my blog from Google are searching for answers also. First, some review. There are two important components to remember when discussing the estate tax — the exemption, which is the… Read More
IRS Loses Major Gift Tax Valuation Case Involving Single Member LLCs
Yesterday, the Tax Court issued its decision in the case of Pierre v. Commissioner, 133 T.C. No. 2 (2009) which was a resounding defeat for the IRS. In a Federal Gift Tax matter, the IRS tried, and failed to argue that because of the check the box regulations, when a taxpayer makes a transfer of… Read More
IRS Loses Large Family Limited Partnership Refund Case.
It turns out that yesterday was a bad day for the IRS. Not only did they lose an important gift tax valuation case, but they also lost a very large Family Limited Partnership case in Federal District Court. I do not think that the facts of Keller vs. United States are very interesting, but the amount… Read More
2009 Legislative Changes to the Florida Probate Code (Part 2)
In my previous post, I discussed some of the minor changes to the Florida Probate Code enacted by the Legislature this year. In this post, I will discuss one of the major changes, and that is to the Elective Share rules. The Elective Share rules are based upon the old English common law rules of… Read More
2009 Legislative Changes to the Florida Probate Code (Part 1)
The Florida Legislature has made a number of tweaks, some major, mostly minor, to the Florida Probate Code in 2009. My summary of the minor revisions are below. The statute went into effect on July 1, 2009. First, the minor changes. In Section 731.201, the term “Incompetent” has been changed to “Incapacitated” (and the definition… Read More
Some Easy Asset Protection Tips
I have received a number of inquiries lately from potential clients who are interested in asset protection. The absolute best time to engage in asset protection is before you have any creditors or potential creditors. While there are some sophisticated techniques that an attorney can help you with, there are also some simple things that… Read More
Michael Jackson Did Not Leave me $5,000,000 in His Will
However, I just received an email from a scam artist claiming he did. I hope that everyone knows that these types of email are always false and are always scams. Michael Jackson did not leave you money in his will, and the widow of the prince of Nigeria doesn’t need your help getting $10,000,000 out… Read More
142 Days Until Armageddon
The clock is ticking. If Congress doesn’t act, on January 1, 2010, the Federal Estate Tax will be repealed. While I’m sure that many people think that this is a great thing, it is not. First, it will be repealed for one year and one year only. Not only that, when it returns on January… Read More
Some Articles From Other Blogs
Below are some articles from other blogs that I read. All of these blogs are in my RSS Reader and I find them essential in keeping up with the world of probate, tax, and estate planning. Note that these are not all of the blogs that I read. Just some of them that had posts over… Read More
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