Rumor has it that Congress will pass a temporary one-year extension of the estate tax before the end of the year. This would continue the estate tax at a 45% maximum rate and a $3.5 million exemption. Otherwise, the tax will be ‘repealed’ in 2010 and then, in 2011, revert to a maximum 55% rate and $1 million exemption.
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Melinda Beck, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a good summary of ‘advanced directives’ – those documents that give direction to family and medical professionals who “may have to decide whether you would want to be kept alive artificially, what level of disability you’d be willing to live with and how to let you die if you had no hope of recovery.” A recent article offers an interesting view into what people in the pre-Civil War south did with extraordinary wealth, how they tried to keep property in their families, and how men were concerned about that wealth passing outside the family to son-in-laws. Michael Jackson’s parents filed papers last week asking the Los Angeles probate court to give Katherine Jackson (but not Michael’s father) authority to manage the singer’s estate under the California Independent Administration of Estates Act. The Court has already appointed John Branca and John McClain as the estate’s executors – at least until an August 3rd hearing. Michael Jackson’s estate, as we’ve said before, will be a nightmare to probate. Might you be interested in getting a seat on the sidelines where you can see the gory events unfold instead of just reading what the media summarizes? The Los Angeles probate court handling Jackson’s estate is online. Here’s how to open the door so you can claim your seat. Hang on tight. Michael Jackson’s estate is likely to be a wild ride! Is there a will? Is there not? If so, who gets a cut? What did Jackson own when he died on June 25? How much is it worth? Is there enough cash to pay the federal estate taxes that will come due on March 25, 2010? Given the intensity of the Jackson family relationships in the past and the questions surrounding who the mothers of his children are, this particular estate will be anything but boring. And it will undoubtedly prove to be a source of long-term income for the attorneys, accountants and appraisers involved. People have used their wills to do do some pretty strange things. Some are good. Some are not. Some are downright ugly. All, however, show that wills and trusts and all the other tools of estate planning (as opposed to just estate tax planning) are nothing more than getting the right things to the right people at the right time under the right conditions and care at the right cost. Sometimes wills do something the person always wanted to do. Sometimes it’s to take one last jab. Here are a few examples of the good, the bad and the ugly. Earlier we reported the administration’s proposed changes to the estate tax laws. This article delves deeper to look at how proposals offered by the administration and in several Congressional bills, might affect common estate planning tools and techniques. Have you ever been involved in a project that seemed doomed to failure almost from the start? Yet it limped along painfully for months or years before someone had the courage to put a bullet in its head. If the horse is dead, get off it. The faster you get off the wrong horse, the faster you can find the right one. Pooh and Piglet can teach us all a lesson about making sure we don’t let the tools we use dictate the things we really want to do. (With special thanks to all the fans of Winnie the Pooh!) Pooh Bear was talking with his friend Piglet in the hundred acre wood. “Piglet, I am so excited. I [...] On May 11 the Treasury Department released its “2009 Green Book”, General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2010 Revenue Proposals. These are the tax hikes the Obama Administration wants to help pay its health care changes. The tax hikes include $24 billion more in estate and gift taxes over the next decade. An earlier story [...] People won’t buy something until they understand it. It doesn’t matter whether it is a product, a service or an idea. You have probably come across people who refused to take action even after you clearly and concisely laid everything out for them. They just didn’t seem to get it. And, because they didn’t get it, [...] Why do financially successful people buy life insurance? It may surprise you that the answer has little to do with costs. “Discounted dollars” – while having a lot of sizzle – is not the real reason people use life insurance. Consider someone who has managed to build (and, in today’s economic climate, preserve) a comfortable net [...] We see the world through our own experiences. You and I can both look at the same thing and see something entirely different. That’s most definitely true when we talk about financial concepts like retirement planning, financial planning or estate planning. If you cannot put yourself into another’s shoes and cannot see things as they see [...] A little mouse once dreamed of the future. He was a smart little mouse and sought out the elderly mice of his community to benefit from their wisdom. The elderly mice spoke of the past. They pondered the future. They reflected on the friends they had enjoyed during their lives. And remembered the lessons learned – [...] |
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Copyright © 2010 Walter Bristow - All Rights Reserved
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