Read Wills, Trusts, & Estate Planning updates, articles, and legal commentary from leading lawyers and law firms:
Widow Foreclosure Catch-22
The 2010 Tax Relief Act and your estate plan
Are your estate planning documents protecting your assets?
Same-Sex Marriage Cases in 90 Seconds
Should you Opt-Out of the Voluntary Disclosure Program?
Death and Foreign Asset Disclosure. What you don't know can cost you…a lot
Safeguard Your MVA: Devising a Business Succession Plan that will Preserve your Most Valuable Asset
Planning for Your Social Media Accounts When You Die
Divorce can be costly, especially when it reveals undisclosed foreign assets.
Estate Planning: Wills, Trusts, & Power of Attorney in Arizona - Putting Family First
Foreign Asset Disclosure Program
The Basics of the Fiscal Cliff Deal & Why the Lack of Sunset Provisions Is Important
On June 6, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service issued Revenue Ruling 2013-14, which concludes that a Fideicomiso or a Mexican Land Trust (MLT) is not taxed as a “trust” for U.S. income tax purposes. While most practitioners...more
Attorney-client privilege has long been protected in California and U.S. courts. Its origins go as far back as legal practices used in ancient Rome and later in English Common Law. The U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed the...more
The new estate laws are challenging to comply with and will require most high net worth individuals to review their existing plan. One of the major issues is how the trust is divided on the death of the first spouse, and who...more
A couple of weeks ago, the Minnesota Legislature passed new tax legislation that, among other things, added a brand new Minnesota gift tax and expanded the applicability of the Minnesota estate tax. A summary of the entire...more
If you are the parent or other caregiver for a person with a serious medical or physical disability, you may find yourself wanting to directly financially assist and support your loved one with special needs. But this can...more
The possibility that we may suffer a catastrophic injury in a car accident or suffer from a sudden serious illness that leaves us physically or mentally incapacitated is not something many of us give much thought to. While...more
A receivership can be thought of as a legal action where control of a company is taken from management and a receiver is appointed to run the company. Receivership can be part of the terms of a bankruptcy ruling. ...more
When a creditor gets a money judgment against a debtor, the creditor will search out the debtor’s income and assets in order to begin collecting on the judgment. The legal means of finding assets is known as "discovery in...more
Our country has had numerous large bankruptcy filings by a variety of corporate industries. Some of the largest filings include: ...more
One of the major causes of financial distress is identity theft. There are fraudsters and scams everywhere. If they get ahold of your personal, financial information, they can wreak havoc on your life. Thus, it is important...more
At first, the digital age crept upon us slowly. Businesses looked at the internet skeptically, not sure how to use it. Consumers waded in bit by bit, at first dipping the proverbial toe in the water and then taking it step by...more
In This Issue: - New 3.8% Medicare contribution tax: Do you know how to reduce or eliminate your liability? - Estate planning for adopted children and stepchildren - Shipping your trust over the state line to...more
A court of appeal recently addressed whether a will was properly admitted to probate. The will contained a regular and complete attestation but only the genuineness of the signature of the decedent and one of the two...more
To relieve their families of the burden of planning a funeral, many people plan their own and pay for them in advance. Unfortunately, prepaid funeral plans are fraught with potential traps. Some plans end up costing more than...more
INTRODUCTION - A. Foreign Persons - Doing Business or Investing in the U.S.. Foreign persons who plan to do business in the United States or invest in a new or existing U.S. business entity are faced with a...more
Many states, including Florida, automatically terminate former spouses as beneficiaries under life insurance policies, annuities, and other beneficiary-designated accounts upon divorce....more
In Hillman v. Maretta (--- S.Ct. ----, U.S.Va., June 3, 2013), the United States Supreme Court considered whether a state law that provides death benefits from an insurance policy be paid to a current spouse, even if a prior...more
Now that Congress has implemented a relatively large per person federal gift/estate tax exemption (i.e., the per person federal gift/estate tax exemption is $5,250,000 in 2013, indexed for inflation), many think that estate...more
Estate plans for married clients typically provide first for the surviving spouse, in a manner that avoids estate tax at the first spouse’s death and minimizes that tax at the second spouse’s death....more
Lenders most often choose to proceed with the trustee's sale pursuant to the deed of trust because a trustee's sale is faster and cheaper than proceeding with a judicial sale, and it has advantages over accepting a deed in...more
SIMPLIFIED PROBATE OPTIONS IN WISCONSIN Last week I shared a few basics about possible simplified probate procedures available in Illinois and Minnesota and today we’ll wrap up our Midwestern exploration with a look at some...more
As an ERISA attorney with a national practice of plan sponsor and retirement plan provider clients around the country (cheap plug here), I hear many excuses as to why plan sponsors don’t want to take a look at their...more
Litigating disputes in probate matters is just as expensive and time-consuming as litigation in other types of cases. However, because most probate lawyers do not handle contested matters in probate courts on a regular basis,...more
According to dictionary.com, permanent means “existing perpetually; everlasting, especially without significant change.” However, for federal tax law purposes, something is “permanent” only so long as Congress and the...more
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