Estate Taxes

In the recent case of Estate of Miriam Ward v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2021-017 (Feb.18,2021), the Tax Court ruled that a charitable deduction to charities was valued at a discount even though 100% of the charitable amount was given to charities. Thomas ("Tom") and...

On March 25, 2021, Senator Bernie Sanders and Whitehouse proposed a bill (the "Sanders Bill") which would drastically change the estate and gift tax. Of course, the Sanders Bill is only a proposal, but this Sanders Bill should be considered in your 2021 planning....

The Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("Notice") which proposes a new user fee to receive IRS Letter 627 - the Estate Tax Closing Letter (the "Letter"). A Letter is necessary to not only clear title for real estate, to close a...

The estate tax exclusion amount is now “portable” between husband and wife and until recently, no explicit guidance was available to determine when and how to successfully file a late return to elect such portability. In the recent Revenue Procedure 2014-18 the IRS...

The Fifth District Court of Appeal of Florida recently held that beneficiaries of annuity contracts are exempt from garnishment pursuant to Florida Statute §222.14.In Connor v. Seaside Nat’l Bank, 2014 WL 1255340, a settlement in a dissolution of marriage distributed...

In Jones v. Golden, (No. SC13-2536), the Florida Supreme Court settled the circuit court split regarding when a reasonably ascertainable creditor is barred if the creditor was never served a Notice to Creditors. Harry Jones’s estate was opened in 2007 and a Notice to...

A Form 706 is required for a taxable estate or for an estate electing portability. Generally, assets are valued as of the date of death to determine an estate tax. The Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) grants a relief provision if, for example, the stock market...

Individuals and their attorneys are very creative when planning to reduce estate taxes. One technique is to transfer an interest in a family owned family limited partnership (“FPL”),  at a discounted value,  to a family member while keeping the entity in the family....

Instead of an outright distribution to a surviving spouse, estate planners often advise that assets be distributed to a qualified terminal interest property (“QTIP”) trust for the benefit of the surviving spouse. This planning occurs often in a second or third...