Most of my married clients come to our first meeting with an idea of what they want to happen with their assets when they die, i.e., when they are gone everything goes equally to their kids, or fifty percent to charities and fifty percent to the kids. This is an important part of the planning […]
Understanding the Impact of Estate Tax Changes Yesterday I was talking to a client about how the tax law rules have changed since the last time we got together to review her estate plan. She mentioned how good it would be for her heirs now that the effective “estate tax exemption” is over $12 million, […]
I love the Tim McGraw song, “In My Next 30 Years.” Having practiced estate planning for 37 years, I’ve witnessed significant changes in the field. In my first 30 years, estate planning was largely driven by tax considerations—the “estate tax tail that wagged the dog.” With an $11 million exemption per person today, the estate […]
1. Failure to Plan A. Believing that their estate is not large enough to warrant any kind of planning (confusing probate exemptions with estate tax exemptions). i. Probate begins if an estate has $75k of titled real estate or $75k of titled personal property (i.e., cars, bank accounts, etc.). Probate is the process of transferring […]
