Take-Away: Much has been written about the importance of taking advantage of the current $11.58 million dollar federal transfer tax exemption, with the focus on the ‘use it or lose it’ principle for lifetime gifts. However, there are, with any estate planning strategy, some potential negative consequences associated with making a large lifetime gift that […]

Take-Away: The IRS’s life expectancy Tables used to establish an individual’s required minimum distributions (RMDs) were scheduled to be updated and become effective on January 1, 2021. Those changes just got delayed one year. Those updated Tables, reflecting longer life expectancies, would have produced smaller RMDs. Now, those smaller RMDs of taxable income are delayed […]

Take-Away: With a census comes new actuarial studies. The census data derived from the 2010 census will result in the issuance of updated decennial life tables that show a much longer life expectancy that will be used in valuations and with several estate planning strategies. The unanswered question is when will the new life expectancy […]

Take-Away: If the donor’s gift to a donor advised fund (DAF) is subject to too much control over the contribution to that DAF, it may cease to be tax exempt under the Tax Code, and the donor’s gift to the DAF may be treated as a gift to a private foundation. That ‘worst-case-scenario’ would limit […]

Take-Away: An important reminder is that for 2020 only, a cash gift of $300 to charity may be deducted even if the donor claims the standard deduction on their 1040 income tax return. Background: The CARES Act, to assist ailing charities, created a one-year exception from normal income tax rules which permits a cash gift […]

Take-Away: There continues to be uncertainty whether there will be significant changes to the tax laws with the election of Vice President Biden, and the outcome of the election of the two Georgia senators. With that uncertainty comes the need to plan estates with some degree of flexibility to respond to future tax law changes […]

Take-Away: The IRS just published Revenue Ruling 2020-27 that provides that if an individual or business received a PPP loan under the CARES Act to be used to pay covered business expenses, those expenses cannot be deducted on the loan recipient’s income tax return this year if the forgiveness of that PPP loan is reasonably […]

Take-Away: A family that is considering the acquisition of real property might consider the use of a Split Purchase Annuity Trust [SPLAT] to take title, as an alternative to a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) or a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT.) Background: A donor is treated for gift tax purposes as transferring the entire […]

Take-Away: If one thing is certain, it is that with every new Congress, some representative will file a Bill to repeal the federal estate tax. Other than the one-time event in 2010 which provided a federal estate tax ‘holiday,’ each Bill to repeal the federal estate tax will disappear, only to be refiled in the […]

Take-Away: Despite all of the angst caused earlier this year when Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed a wealth tax, it does not look like such a tax will be gaining any traction in the near future. Background: Senator Warren proposed during her Presidential campaign a wealth tax of 2% on annual wealth tax on wealth in […]