Clearwater, Florida Estate Planning Blog
Own Property in a Foreign Country? Don’t Forget to Plan for the Disposition in Your Estate Planning Documents
I have had the good fortune to travel all over the world and love looking at the real estate deals around the world. While I only dream about owning property in another country, I know many individuals pursue their dream and own real estate in different states as well...
Implied Death of the Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (IDGT)?
In President Obama’s 2013 budget, he proposes to include a change to the estate and gift taxation of an Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (IDGT) created by a decedent. An IDGT is created to remove the property from a grantor’s estate for estate tax purposes...
Co-personal representatives or co-trustees.. Good idea?
Most of my clients are very sensitive to their children’s feelings and want to treat all of them equally. While that may be a great idea as to the distributions under a trust or a will (or it may not depending on the circumstances), the idea of joint trustees or...
United States Supreme Court Case Makes Landmark Decision
Oh June 26, 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, Director, Ohio, the United State Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when...
To Forgive May Not Always Be Divine…
If you loan someone $10,000 and then either forgive or cancel part of the loan (perhaps because it is too difficult to collect the debt) and the forgiveness or cancellation is not a gift, you probably haven’t realized that such forgiveness will create taxable income...
IRA Saves A Missed Alternate Valuation Election
When an estate exceeds the applicable exclusion amount (the “Exemption”) of $5.490 million, a taxpayer is required to file a Form 706 for the decedent’s estate. Under the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”), assets are valued as of the date of death. However, the Code...
Decanting…It Isn’t Just About Wine…
Some of you may have heard of decanting in the wine world. Apparently, sediment from the fermentation process can produce an undesirable taste in wine. The wine is decanted to separate the wine from these sediments. In the trust world, a trust can be “decanted” from...
Court Gets It Right- Limited Liability Company (LLC) Member Protection Works!
Many of our clients created LLCs to protect their assets inside the LLC from lawsuits by creditors against our clients individually. Prior to 2010 it was generally understood that if an LLC member was sued by an outside creditor and obtained a judgement against that...
Relief for Late Filed Portabilty Elections!
The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has offered needed relief for portability elections. Portability, discussed in a prior blog, can save a surviving spouse’s beneficiaries over $2 million (in 2017) in estate taxes! However, to utilize such savings, the surviving...
A New Will and Revoking Your Old Trust… The Devil is in the Details!
Many individuals have created revocable trusts that no longer meet their needs or they do not want a trust. They do not care about “avoiding” probate and some actually want court supervision! What happens if an old revocable trust is not properly revoked or, having...