The Administration’s 2015 Budget, Dept. of Treas. “General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2015 Revenue Proposals,” (March, 2014), includes some drastic, previously submitted proposals of significance to estate planners, including: (a) Requiring a person who buys an interest in an existing life insurance contract with a death benefit of $500,000 or more to report the purchase and report any payment of the policy benefits;(b) Modifying the transfer-for-value rule by eliminating the exception for transfers to a partner of the insured, a partnership in which the insured is a partner, or a corporation in which the insured is a shareholder or officer, and adding an exception for a transfer to a partnership or corporation in which the insured is a 20% owner;(c) Restoring the estate, […]

“The Sensible Estate Tax Act of 2014,” introduced by House Ways and Means Committee member Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), would reduce the estate tax exclusion amount to $1 million, raise the top estate and gift tax rate (and the sole GST tax rate) to 55% (on amounts over $10 million), and make numerous other changes in the estate, gift, and GST taxes. This has not chance of passage, but reflects the continued efforts of progressive democrats to keep the discussion alive, in view of emerging issue of financial inequality in coming elections.

As you sit with your attorney and plan your estate, you are attempting to arrange a plan which will properly meet your objectives.  Helping you figure out what those objectives might be is one of the most important services the Will Doctor can provide to our clients.  New research into our identity by experimental philosophers and others points out that there really is a good reason to come back and see us regularly, because the person who comes back in a few months, or years later, is going to be very different.  It seems, more different than we suspect.   A great discussion and video fleshes this out, in the following link:  http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/26/josh-knobe-self/ Maria Popova ( see last Post) in the review of David DeSteno’s […]

Alot of ink, real and virtual,  is being spilled about the need for managing our digital assets after our demise. Of course, there are many digital activities (social, political, and sexual) that we fully intend to take to the grave with us, and we demand complete confidentiality and proper handling by the administrators of those assets.  The Terms of Service, (“TOS”) Agreements which come with all our cyber accounts are evolving to give us more choices over the handling of these resources upon death or incapacity, but for the most part, take the cautious road and terminate all access to accounts by heirs, agents, and fiduciaries.   That was a good starting point, but as our physical and on-line lives become more enmeshed, more options […]