RobRoy's blog

Honestly, I don't think anyone really saw this coming. Even the nerdiest of the Tax Law and Accounting nerds didn't think that Congress would actually allow the Estate Tax to be repealed. But Congress has. It's gone!

The Problem

First, the good news: If you (1) have a large estate (over $3.5 M), (2) you live in Utah (where we have no state inheritance taxes), and (3) you die in 2010 and before Congress changes the law, then all of your estate will pass to your heirs/beneficiaries free of Estate and Generation Skipping Transfer Taxes (GSTT), even without planning. Hooray!

Now the bad news: If your estate consists of a significant amount of property that has appreciated above what you originally paid for it

Many of my clients have heard me quip about how Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should be worried beginning New Year’s Day, 2010 because of the large target that Congress has placed squarely upon their backs. Now, to be honest, there is most likely no actual, physical threat to their lives because they have probably done appropriate estate planning. But this quip helps me to illustrate a point about Estate Taxes. On New Year’s Day 2010 – unless something happens within the next few weeks over in Washington D.C. – the Estate Tax or “Death Tax” will go away in a puff of smoke. In other words, as the laws currently stand, any one individual who dies in 2010 owning over $3.5 million worth of property will not have to pay Uncle Sam 1 red cent in estate taxes.

For the sake of illustration, let’s assume that Mr. Gates died “intestate” (i.e. without any wills or trusts in place) and that he wasn’t married.

Blog Post by Melissa Platt, Esq.

I love to watch the TV show, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” For those of you not familiar with the show, the premise is to select a family who has suffered extreme hardship and whose home is literally falling apart around them, and while the show sends the family on vacation for a week, the makeover team demolishes the old house and builds the family a brand new home. Aside from the fact that it’s a lot of fun to see the “beyond-your-wildest-dreams” homes they create in a week, I like to watch the show because I always walk away from it with an intense feeling of gratitude. Gratitude for my health, my family, my home, my life.
 

The Ohio Supreme Court recently slapped a $6.4 million penalty upon two companies, American Family Prepaid Legal Corp. and Heritage Marketing and Insurance Services Inc., for the illegal practice of law (running a "Trust Mill") in that state.  These companies have also been banned from ever operating in Ohio again.

What is a "Trust Mill?"  Trust Mills are typically made up of individuals who sell insurance, annuities or other types of high-commission financial products.  

Joint ownership is commonly thought to be an easy alternative to estate planning. Perhaps you (or your parents) have kicked around the idea of adding the name of a trusted adult child on a checking account or the title to your home. The thought is that as Mom (or Dad) gets older, the