Biden’s Tax Proposal and the “Step-Up in Basis”: What it Means for Your Estate Plan or Trust A commonly utilized tax law in estate planning considerations, known as the “step up in basis,” may be in jeopardy. The “step-up,” derived from section 1014 of the Internal Revenue Code, gets applied…
Bernie’s “For the 99.5% Act”: Is It Time to Start Thinking about Tax Planning? For the year 2021, each individual has $11,700,000.00 of estate tax credit (or $23,400,000.00 for married couples), otherwise known as the “applicable exclusion amount.” For estates that exceed the applicable exclusion amount, the tax rate is…
I Made an Irrevocable Trust a Long Time Ago: Can I Change it Now? People make irrevocable trusts for many reasons, one major reason being tax planning. In order to make a completed gift for tax reasons, a donor has to part with control over the gifted asset, and making…
The Secure Act: Retirement Accounts and Your Estate Plan Beginning on December 20, 2019, the Secure Act substantially changed the rules for designated beneficiaries of retirement plans, with wide raging implications for estate planning. The old rule used to be that upon the death of a retirement account owner, the…
Are Actions Taken Before Appointment as Personal Representative Valid? Yes, if the Actions Were Beneficial to the Estate Florida law states that the duties and powers of a personal representative commence upon appointment. You may be named as personal representative in a decedent’s will, you are not legally considered a…
Legitimate Taxation or “Confiscation?” Taxing Trust Income Which states can tax a trust’s income? This exact question was taken up by the Supreme Court in their recent opinion North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust. North Carolina was of the opinion that they could tax…
Foreign Property, Divorce, and Florida Probate Proceedings: Do not Assume Anything In Florida, if for some reason your marriage ends, there are some instances where your ex-spouse’s rights to inheritance under your estate plan are automatically severed. In Florida, the ex-spouse is automatically cut out of any estate planning…
Understanding Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Under Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act Social networking, e-mail, and digital platforms are here to stay; unfortunately, we are not. Internet users must plan for the management and disposition of their assets in similar ways that they make plans for tangible property.…
ESTATE PLANNING: CRYPTO CURRENCIES AND DIGITAL ASSETS Although we all unquestionably live in a digital age at least for the past two decades and the legislatures are adopting new laws every day to reflect this reality, digital estate planning remains one of the areas where relying on state-made laws might…
What is Probate? Probate is a process, which the court supervises, for settling a deceased person’s estate. The process involves identifying assets belonging to the estate, paying the decedent’s debt, and distributing the remainder of the assets to the decedent’s beneficiaries. Costs for the probate proceeding have first priority for…