A recent Forbes Magazine article discusses that even though the Federal Estate Tax exemption is $3,500,000, and is scheduled to disappear next year, there are still 17 states and the District of Columbia that still have either an estate tax or an inheritance tax. As I’ve written about before, one of the benefits of living… Read More
I’m Not Writing About Pending Estate Tax Legislation
I keep seeing stories about various estate tax reform bills that have been introduced in Congress. They range from repealing it, to extending the exemption, to raising the exemption to lowering it, etc. I’m not going to waste time and effort reading the various bills and the tea leaves. When Congress actually does something, I’ll… Read More
WSJ: Is There a Trap Lurking in the Language of your Will?
In today’s (October 15, 2009) Wall Street Journal, there is an article entitled “Is There a Trap Lurking in the Language of your Will?” written by reporter Laura Sanders. The article correctly points out that many semi-wealthy couples may have a serious problem in their Wills. By “semi-wealthy” I mean estates worth up to $4… Read More
From The Hill: Debate over Estate Tax Likely to Wait
No surprise here. With its “busy fall agenda” the debate over the estate tax is likely to wait. It’s not like they haven’t known of this upcoming problem for the past 9 years or so. A split among Democrats and a busy fall agenda is likely to have lawmakers hold off this year on debating… Read More
Still no action on the estate tax
As anyone who has followed my blog knows, on January 1, 2010, the federal estate tax is repealed for one year and one year only, after which it comes back into effect, at a lower exemption ($1,000,000) and a higher rate (55%) than before. Congress knew that this has been coming since 2001, and yet… Read More
The Is No Estate Tax in Florida
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 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
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