Category: Estate Planning

Estate planning involves a lot of moving parts. So you’d be forgiven for overlooking or forgetting about certain issues when making decisions about transferring wealth in the most tax-effective manner after you die. An experienced estate planner can help ensure you dot all the “i’s” and cross all the “t’s.” But if you’ve done some of your own estate planning or worked with different advisors over the years, a few things may have fallen through the cracks. Here are four… Read more ›

A living trust is a popular consideration in many estate strategy conversations, but its appropriateness will depend upon your individual needs and objectives. What is a Living Trust? A living trust is created while you are alive and funded with the assets you choose to transfer into it. The trustee (typically you) has full power to manage these assets.1 It will also designate a beneficiary, or beneficiaries, much like a will, to whom the assets are structured to automatically pass… Read more ›

If you’re new to the concept of business valuations or looking to learn more about the topic, you may quickly find that determining the real value of a business isn’t an easy task. Your company’s assets and liabilities can help you determine a baseline value, but there’s so much more that goes into a business than the physical assets. Goodwill accounts for all the intangible value of a business. Knowing what it is and how to calculate can assist business… Read more ›

For married people with large estates, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) brings welcome relief from federal estate and gift taxes, as well as the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax. Here’s what you need to know and how to take advantage of the favorable changes. Estate Planning Tips: Estate and Gift Tax Basics The TCJA sets the unified federal estate and gift tax exemption at $12.92 million per person for 2023 (up from $12.06 million for 2022). For married couples,… Read more ›

This is the second of a two-part blog series on building a strong financial foundation for younger, early-career professionals. The series covers topics such as understanding net worth, financial goal-setting, investing and saving, debt and tax planning. Click here to read the first part of the blog series. Manage Your Debt Not all debt is bad debt, especially if you have a low interest rate that’s helping you finance an asset and thus increasing your net worth. A mortgage is… Read more ›

The IRS recently announced many inflation adjustments for the 2023 tax year. IRS Revenue Procedure 2022-38 provides details about these amounts. Because inflation is high, many of the amounts for 2023 will change more than they have in recent years. Here are some of the tax amounts for 2023, as compared with 2022. Tax Item 2023 2022 Highest tax rate of 37% Will affect singles with income exceeding $578,125 ($693,750 for married taxpayers filing jointly). Affects singles with income exceeding $539,900… Read more ›

If your not-for-profit focuses most of its fundraising energy on donors who can contribute to your mission and programs now, you may have neglected legacy gifts. Such gifts represent a portion of wealthy donors’ estates that go to your organization on their death. Legacy gifts can help position your nonprofit for sustained growth well into the future. Let’s take a closer look at the hows and the whys. Mechanics of Giving The vast majority of legacy gifts are made through… Read more ›

One estate-planning tool that can protect your family and the partners in your dealership is a buy-sell agreement. This legal document may give owners the first shot at buying an interest in the company if another owner pulls out, becomes disabled or dies. Ideally, these contracts are drawn up when a business is launched, or acquired from other owners, but they can be entered into later. Don’t wait too long. If you die or become disabled without an agreement, it… Read more ›

The Build Back Better Act, as initially proposed, made significant changes that affected estate planning for high net-worth individuals. The Act proposed a significant reduction in the basic exclusion amount from $11.7 million to approximately $6 million. It also proposed to eliminate the grantor trust rules that estate planners have been using to reduce taxable estates for decades. If this Act had passed in its original form, it would have significantly reduced opportunities to reduce transfer taxes. However, the Build… Read more ›

  The IRS recently issued its 2022 cost-of-living adjustments for more than 60 tax provisions. With inflation up significantly this year, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many amounts increased considerably over 2021 amounts. As you implement 2021 year-end tax planning strategies, be sure to take these 2022 adjustments into account. Also, keep in mind that, under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), annual inflation adjustments are calculated using the chained consumer price index (also known as C-CPI-U). This… Read more ›