LEGAL UPDATES

Follow IRS rules to avoid losing some of your 2015 charitable donation deductions

Sharing your estate with charity by making donations during your life not only benefits your favorite organizations and reduces your taxable estate, but also can reduce your income tax bill. However, if you don’t…

Direct tuition payments: An attractive option for funding your grandchild’s college education

It’s no secret that the cost of a college education continues to soar. If you’d like to help fund your grandchild’s higher education, a simple but effective technique is to make tuition payments on…

The new year is a perfect time for an estate planning checkup

An annual estate plan checkup is critical to the health of your estate plan. Because various exclusion, exemption and deduction amounts are adjusted for inflation, they can change from year to year, impacting…

Second-to-die life insurance is a vehicle to pay estate taxes

For married couples with large estates, second-to-die life insurance (sometimes called “survivorship insurance” or “dual-life insurance”) can be a useful tool for providing liquidity to pay estate taxes. This type of policy pays off…

Protecting your retirement savings from creditors

Estate planning and asset protection go hand-in-hand. After all, no matter how well your estate plan is designed, it won’t do much good if you have no wealth to share with your family. If…

Unmarried couples must take extra steps to reduce estate tax liability

Unlike married couples, who can take advantage of the marital deduction, unmarried partners can’t transfer unlimited amounts to each other tax-free. To reduce their estate tax bills, they must take some additional steps. One…

Seek an appraisal before donating artwork

Valuable works of art may be ideal candidates for lifetime charitable donations. Generally, it’s advantageous to donate appreciated property because, in addition to reducing your taxable estate and garnering an income tax deduction, you…

Have you factored GST tax into your gifting strategy?

If your adult children face the prospect of high taxes on their estates, consider skipping a generation with some of your bequests and gifts. But beware of the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax, which applies…

Three Reasons an Estate Valuation Can Be Beneficial

With the gift and estate tax exemption currently at $5.43 million, you might think that estate valuations are less important. But even if you believe that your estate’s value is under the exemption amount,…

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