Consider a not uncommon scenario. The date is Jan. 1, 2008. Bob Savvy is the sole shareholder of Family Fortune, Inc., an S corporation. Family Fortune was recently appraised at $10 million, but the investment bankers Bob has spoken to believe...
Just as things seemed to be quieting down)after the Pension Protection Act of 2006, Jalong came the latest challenge to the peace of the estate-planning world: tax patents. In early 2006, an infringement suit was filed over the first business...
On June 25, 2007, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Knight v. Commissioner1 to decide whether trusts and estates can fully deduct the fees they pay for the investment management and advisory services they receive.2 For the last 10 years, a debate...
In 1976, Congress enacted Section 6166 of the Internal Revenue Code so that, when a business owner died, his closely held business wouldn't have to be sold just to pay the federal estate taxes owed on his estate. Before this law, a taxable estate...
Pre-mortem probate surely that's an oxymoron? A will becomes effective only upon the death of its maker. To probate a person's last will and testament, meaning to prove the will's validity, months or even years before the person dies seems...
On April 17, 2007, the nation lost a grande dame of the arts and culture: Kitty Carlisle Hart, chair of the New York State Council on the Arts from 1976 to 1996, a woman who had an extraordinarily long and varied career in show business. Born with...
While estate tax reform doesn't seem as pressing these days as the Iraq war or immigration, it is an important enough issue that members of the U.S. Senate, from both parties, are discussing possible solutions to the one-year window when the tax...
Thomas Jefferson did it in the 1790s. Ernest Hemingway did it and wrote about it in the 1920s. Today, as well, many Americans move to France to live. Wealthy Americans often purchase homes there, which they visit parfois (occasionally). Some...
does not truly mean Today, trustees and beneficiaries of an irrevocable trust no longer need to blindly accept the trust's terms but instead should consider whether the trust needs remodeling and, if so, whether a decanting statute may be the best...
About eight months ago, my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). We immediately started to learn everything we could about the disease, so that we could make informed decisions concerning treatment, lifestyle and other critical issues...
