Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for letting parents know the importance of setting up trusts for their children upon their death. Generally, if you don’t have a Will, or have one that leaves everything to your minor children outright, then upon that child reaching the age of 18 (or 21 depending on the state),… Read More
Place your out of state timeshare in your revocable trust to avoid ancillary probate
I came across an article written by Christopher Yugo in the Times of Indiana. According to the article, Mr. Yugo is a member of the Indiana Bar and a vice president and senior trust officer for First National Bank’s Trust Department. The following question and answer (reposted here in part, see the original for the… Read More
NY Times on Adult Adoptions for Gay and Lesbian Couples to Secure Inheritances
Yesterday the New York Times published an article about how gay and lesbian couples are engaging in “adult adoption,” in effect adopting each other, in order to secure inheritance rights to family trusts. In “Adult Adoption a High Stakes Means to an Inheritance” writer Deborah L. Jacobs writes that while it is not necessary to use this… Read More
Money Magazine: “Estate Planning: Rethink Your Legacy”
There is an article today on CNN’s site, taken from its Time-Warner Sister Money Magazine entitled “Rethinking your estate plan.” In it, the author interviews a couple whose assets have recently fallen 15% in value (which actually isn’t bad compared to most people). The couple, Les and Anna Glowacz executed estate planning documents five years… Read More
An Estate Planning Joke
Just a little light humor for a Sunday afternoon. A guy walks into a bar. He recently found out that his elderly father will be passing away in a few years and leaving him a very large inheritance. Using this new information as leverage in the dating market, he decides it’s time to find someone… Read More
Realistic Estate Planning by George E. Meng
George E. Meng, an estate planning attorney in Maryland for over 35 years, has written an article in The American Chronicle entitled “Realistic Estate Planning.” In it he discusses some of the following issues: Will or Trust? Mr. Meng points out that the primary reason for using a trust is probate avoidance, something I’ve written about… Read More
Attorney not liable to potential beneficiary in undrafted document
One of the bedrock rules for estate planning attorneys is that our clients must have sufficient mental capacity to execute their documents. This does not mean that a client has to have perfect understanding of every passage of legal boilerplate. Basically, a client needs to be able to understand the nature of their property and… Read More
Even though the Estate Tax remains in flux, don’t put off your planning
I’ve written numerous posts about how the estate tax remains in flux. Right now the exemption, that is the amount a person can own when they die before being subject to the federal estate tax is $3,500,000. Next year (2010) that amount becomes unlimited, and the year after that it goes down to $1,000,000. No… Read More
Long Term Estate Tax Reform Unlikely in the Coming Year
This past weekend was the annual conference of the American Bar Association Section on Taxation. At one of the sessions focused on the estate and gift tax, aides to Senate Finance Committee Member Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Kyl (R-AZ) appeared jointly. According to Sen. Schumer’s aide, there will much more likely be a “patch”… Read More
Update on Leona Helmsley Estate
According to David Goldman, the other Florida Estate Planning blogger named David (but who lives 300 miles away in Jacksonville), Leona Helmsley’s estate made distributions of $136 million to charities, and “only” $1 million to her pets.
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