Kimberly Trueman

If you were married, the tax code allows for portability, or the ability to share exemptions with your spouse. With a timely filed estate tax return after the death of the first spouse, you can effectively utilize your deceased spouse’s unused exemption amount. However, if you are single with no plans for marrying in the near future, the planning strategies require a bit more creativity. Head over to our latest blog post to learn more about these estate planning strategies.

Not unlike our homes and yards, our estate plans may be in need of a spring cleanup too! If it has been a few years since you have visited with your estate planning attorney, now is the perfect time to review your plan to ensure that your documents are up to date. Check out our latest blog post to learn the 5 things you should be reviewing.

Generation Skipping Transfer Tax (GSTT) is the tax imposed on transfers made to grandchildren, or individuals (other than a spouse) who are at least 37 ½ years younger than the donor of the gift. GSTT sounds complicated, and can be complicated, but the concept is simple. Check out our latest blog post to find out how the GSTT affects your estate planning.

Creating a Will is so much more than just writing down the names of those who you wish to inherit. It is about creating a comprehensive plan not only for your death, but disability and the future death and disability of your beneficiaries. While it may seem easy to write something simple yourself or download a form from the internet, failing to have a properly drafted and executed Will has major consequences that can leave your intended beneficiaries with much less than you intended. Check out our latest blog post for a list of some of the top mistakes that can occur when using a “do-it-yourself Will”

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (“SECURE”) Act became effective on January 1, 2020. While the Act was aimed at improving retirement savings, there is a negative change which effects those who inherit retirement accounts from the original participant.

Whether a bank account must go through probate depends on how the account was held – jointly or in the decedent’s sole name. Like real property, bank accounts can be owned in many ways. If a bank account is held jointly between two or more parties, there is usually a right of survivorship. This means that if two people are co-owners of an account, and one owner dies, the surviving owner inherits the account, without the need for probate.

If you have a disabled child who is already receiving means-based government benefits, such as Medicaid or Social Security Supplemental Income, it is imperative that your estate planning documents leave that child’s share in a Supplemental Needs Trust (also called a Special Needs Trust). Learn more about third party Supplemental Needs Trusts in our latest blog post.