The American Tax Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA), which took effect earlier this year, contains a number of provisions that may affect your estate plan. Following are highlights of five of the ATRA's most significant changes: The tax rate. The federal estate and gift tax rate is now capped at 40 percent. The exemption. Years [...]
A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running. - Groucho Marx Alexis Rodriguez, an unemployed doorman, expected he would get a hospital bill after his three-week hospitalization for pneumonia at New York’s Bronx-Lebanon hospital. He almost had an asthma attack when the bill that arrived was for more than $44 million. In [...]
The New York Times reports that as the great anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela remains in critical condition, his family is facing some very difficult decisions regarding his end-of-life care, particularly whether or not to continue life support. You can make it easier on your family by establishing some guidelines for them to follow by preparation [...]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is one of the most significant and controversial pieces of legislation to have been passed for many years. Despite numerous legal challenges, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally ruled that the legislation is constitutional. However, in a recent case, the Court held that states may opt out [...]
There are many ways of making gifts to family members and to charities and, if the gift is done right, you may be able to avoid taxes. Here are just a few ideas to discuss with your estate planning attorney: Annual exclusion gifts There is no gift tax on gifts that do not exceed a [...]
New York real estate developer Roman Blum was a Holocaust survivor, whose first wife and son died in the war. His second wife, who passed away in 1992, was infertile as a result of Joseph Mengele’s medical experiments in the concentration camps. Roman Blum died alone and childless. He also died with an estate of [...]
Warren Hillman was a federal employee who owned a Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) Policy with a death benefit worth over $124,000. Hillman had named his former wife, Judy Maretta, as the beneficiary on that policy. When they divorced, Hillman neglected to change that designation, even after he remarried. When Hillman died in 2008, [...]
While most people care about leaving their family in the best financial shape possible, only half of all Americans have a will. Gallup polls suggest the older a person gets the more likely they will have a will or other estate plan. In fact, more than 70% of Americans ages 50 or older have a [...]
According to a 2011 Columbia University study, 46 percent of American high school students use alcohol or drugs (approximately six million teenagers), and that almost all those suffering from substance abuse addictions started using before they reached their 18th birthday. Parents are often at a loss when dealing with a teen or adult heir who [...]
When George Steinbrenner died in July 2010, his most famous asset — the New York Yankees — was left in the care of his two sons Hal and Hank. Many Yankee fans wondered how this might affect baseball’s most successful franchise and whether or not the team would be sold. It turned out that while [...]