Estate Planning

In the past few months, we've witnessed political and economic events that are unprecedented in recent memory. The debt crisis and ensuing investment market fluctuations, record low interest rates that we've been assured are unlikely to...

Until just a few years ago, an estate executor on the hunt for important documents might find them in a filing cabinet at a decedent's home or in a safety deposit box at a bank. But now, with powerful computers and easy access to the Internet, a...

Once upon a time, estate planners focused almost exclusively on the federal tax implications of their planning for clients. State1 death taxes, which were simple by comparison, didn't merit similar concern. In the past decade, however, tax law...

Perhaps it's a matter of managing expectations and responsibilities between attorneys and clients about who will have the ongoing responsibility to ensure that various technical requirements and administrative details of an estate-planning...

The fiduciary exception may be falling out of favor

S&P’s downgrade isn’t the problem, say wealth management and family office executives; it’s worse than that. The problem is the nations’ underlying structure of political, economic and fiscal problems—they are a legitimate cause for long-term...

Fewer estates are now subject to federal estate taxes, thanks to the $5 million federal estate tax exemption. Internal Revenue Service data indicates that only 8,239 estates larger than $5 million filed a federal estate tax return in 2009, the...

The field of asset protection is often stigmatized. The phrase may inspire thoughts of deadbeats, scam artists, and tax evaders.1 However, the concept has become common and refers to nothing more than the process of an individual or family...

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (TRA 2010) has been described as an estate planning with its 35 percent rate and $5 million estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption.1 How...