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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
If you own an insurance policy on your life and want to keep the policy’s proceeds out of your taxable estate, one option is selling the policy to an irrevocable grantor trust. This is…
