Unless you live under a rock, deep in a cave, you have heard about the new tax act that Congress is putting together. This is not a political commentary on that act. More importantly a few things to remember: – With regards to estate tax very few people reading this need to worry about that […]

We in the tax and estate planning world love acronyms so no surprise the governments newest tax law is called “PATH” which stands for Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes act of 2015.   I like to blog about estate taxes primarily but as the focus in estate planning moves toward incomes taxes I like to […]

HOT OFF THE PRESSES:  The Internal Revenue Service has released a draft of a new Form 8971 for reporting basis information in accordance with new IRC section 6035 for assets held by a decedent and reported on a federal estate tax return (Form 706) filed on or after August 1, 2015. The form says it is to […]

The IRS recently released the tax adjustments for 2016. As our firm focuses on gift and estate tax planning I wanted to share the relevant numbers with you. The annual gift exemption remains at $14,000. As a reminder that is the amount each person can give away, each year, to any individual, and all without […]

I just learned of estimated gift and estate tax exemption for 2016. Again, this is just an estimate but comes from a reliable source. They project that the federal gift and estate tax exemption will be $5,450,000 ($5.45m) which is up from this year’s $5,430,000.  They project that the annual gift tax exclusion will remain at […]

I heard a great presentation recently by a CPA. He was talking about, what he calls, “reverse estate planning.” Say what? Well, we all know that the focus in estate planning has changed from estate taxes (death taxes) to capital gains tax (income taxes). This CPA had a great idea to improve people’s basis. As […]

The IRS released their gift and estate tax exemption numbers for 2015 a few months back. In case you missed it they are: GIFT TAX: It remains at $14,000 per donor per donee.  So a husband and wife can do a “split gift” and give $28,000 to any indivudual (family or otherwise). ESTATE and GIFT […]

The IRS has released their inflation adjusted numbers for 2014. The estate tax exclusion has gone up to $5.34m for 2014.  The annual gift exclusion remains at $14,000. Below is the text straight from the IRS website: 2014 Inflation Adjustments IR-2013-87, Oct. 31, 2013 WASHINGTON — For tax year 2014, the Internal Revenue Service announced […]

Here is the latest from the IRS for the AFR (applicable federal rates) for October 2013. REV. RUL. 2013-21 TABLE 2 Adjusted AFR for October 2013 Period for Compounding Annual Semiannual Quarterly Monthly Short-term adjusted AFR .32% .32% .32% .32% Mid-term adjusted AFR 1.78% 1.77% 1.77% 1.76% Long-term adjusted AFR 3.50% 3.47% 3.46% 3.45%

Estate planning and, in particular, estate taxes remain a moving target. Here’s a recent article from the New York Times highlighting this problem.  I encourage you to check it out here. – John Palley