John Wick - What You Need To Know about the Corporate Transparency Act
Once Removed Episode 24: Expressing Goals and Intent for the Trust
Once Removed Episode 22: Building Flexibility into the Estate Plan
Once Removed Episode 20: Helping a Beneficiary Purchase a Home
Once Removed Episode 19: The Step-Transaction Doctrine and the Case of Smaldino
Next Generation Legacy Management - The Essence of Developing, Managing and Implementing a Plan for Future Generations
A Primer On Trusts - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
Once Removed Episode 13: It’s 5 o’Clock: Do You Know Where Your Will Is? A Lesson From Aretha Franklin
Charitable Bequests With Guest Stephanie Hood
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: Family Office Technology Solutions
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: The Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act
What is a self-proving affidavit?
The Importance of Beneficiary Designations
Basics of Estate Planning
The Case of the Disappearing Trust
Protecting Your Estate Plan from Challenges: No-Contest Clause Explained
The Secret Child
Welcome to 'Splitting Heirs'
Today’s federal estate and gift tax laws may be remembered as the most generous to wealthy families since the Great Depression. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) doubled the federal estate, gift, and generation skipping...more
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee approved Public Chapter No. 695 on April 11, 2024, as passed by the Tennessee General Assembly (Trust Bill). The new law became effective on July 1, 2024, and it made several important changes to...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 provided major changes to the Internal Revenue Code, specifically doubling the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption (collectively, the exemption) from...more
What are some of the fundamental issues when estate planning for business owners? Why should every business owner have an estate plan? What are some of the primary issues to address in an effective estate plan for those who...more
In the world of farming and ranching, ensuring your land's future is vital. That's where agricultural estate planning comes in. It's all about smoothly transitioning your farm or ranch to the next generation, maintaining its...more
Because each donor is treated as a separate party for tax and other purposes, donors often involve others in making gifts. For example, a donor might transfer assets to his or her spouse, so the spouse actually makes the gift...more
There are numerous benefits of using trusts in your estate plan. For example, trusts can maximize the tax code provisions shielding assets from gift and estate taxes, protect assets from the clutches of creditors or...more
Gifting assets during life allows individuals to minimize their estate tax liabilities at death. Gifting is a strategy that can preserve wealth for future generations by minimizing estate taxes....more
There are a lot of very smart tax attorneys out there who are trying to figure out something new, and yet there’s very little innovation. Almost all techniques that we use are incremental variations of an older technique...more
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced increased transfer tax exclusions for calendar year 2024 as part of Revenue Procedure 2023-34. The significant increases in the unified credit against estate, gift and...more
A strong stock market and “soft landing” have generated significant wealth this year. The gift tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax are all imposed on the fair market value of assets at the time of transfer....more
It’s not enough for the founder of a closely held business to have successfully established the business. The business has to grow, not only to increase profits, but also to make it more competitive and to diversify its...more
Actor Will Rogers is widely credited with stating that “the only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” While most taxpayers fear tax laws changing for the worse, estate...more
A look at some of the most widely read estate planning updates and guidance published on JD Supra during 2022....more
During 2022, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, global inflation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the uncertainty about the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), and the Inflation Reduction Act...more
The year-end is approaching, but you still have time to work on your 2022 tax planning. Consider giving to your favorite charity to make this holiday season merry. Planned charitable giving provides you a way to maximize...more
The federal estate tax exemption provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025, potentially requiring more people to pay estate taxes. In view of the uncertainty of the estate tax laws, it is important to have estate...more
Cryptocurrencies are becoming a larger component of investors' portfolios, especially for millennials and Generation Z, who collectively make up 94 percent of cryptocurrency buyers. While it may seemingly be too early for...more
In 2022, the annual exclusion for Federal Gift Taxes increased to $16,000 per person per year. Although there is near-universal acceptance of the importance of gifting, there are several issues you should consider before...more
Our annual estate and tax planning newsletter discusses certain concepts and techniques that should be considered in 2022 by our clients and friends in California. Perhaps the most important recent development was the failure...more
“Legendary was the Xanadu where Kubla Kahn decreed his stately pleasure dome.” Legendary too were the colossal errors made by Mary Kane in this celebrated classic movie which follows a journalist as he tries to uncover the...more
...The federal tax laws are certainly about to change. With the need to raise revenue as a top priority for the Biden Administration, everyone is expecting dramatic changes to the Internal Revenue Code. Tax legislation is...more
In this second blog post on the House Ways and Means Tax proposals, we address the proposed changes that will affect the taxation of trusts, estates, and retirement plans. As we discussed, on September 13, 2021, the...more
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee released, and advanced out of committee, draft tax legislation intended to form a part of the Democratic budget reconciliation bill. At almost 900 pages in length, this draft...more
On Sunday, September 12, 2021, the House Ways & Means Committee (the "Committee") released draft legislation as part of Congress' ongoing $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation process. The legislation, as approved by the...more