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estate planning Tag

Estate Planning and the Capital Gain Tax

[vc_row triangle_shape="no"][vc_column][vc_column_text]Back in the heyday of estate planning when just about everyone who died owning a home and an IRA would have an estate subject to this tax, the choice between paying estate tax versus paying capital gain tax was an easy one to make. Up until the last few years, the highest estate tax bracket was 55% and the top long-term capital gain tax bracket was only 15%. If you had a choice of paying the estate tax or paying the capital gain tax, the capital gain tax was the obvious choice. This choice was really so clear-cut that most of...

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Need to Plan for Children Reaching 18 and Beyond

Once your child reaches age 18, you as the parent no longer have the same legal rights to handle your child’s financial affairs, healthcare decisions or any of the other matters affecting your child. As long as your child is living and competent, the child is legally entitled to handle his or her own affairs; but if your child should become incapacitated, through injury or illness and the child is age 18 or older, in order to obtain control over the child’s financial and medical decisions, it will be necessary to file a petition with the guardianship court. Not only is...

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Estate Planning: Who Should Own The Captive Insurance Company?

From an estate planning perspective, there are a variety of ways to structure the ownership of a captive insurance company to enhance the overall tax and asset protection benefits available through §831(b) captive planning. But first, a few words on Captive Insurance Companies and Internal Revenue Code section 831(b): What is a captive insurance company? Simply put, a captive insurance company is an insurance company that is owned by one or more business owners to provide insurance for the business. Let us be clear, a captive is an insurance company, not an insurance contract or insurance product. A captive enters into insurance...

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Community Property vs. Separate Property for Estate Planning

Community Property. Community property is everything that a husband and wife own together. Nevada is a community property state. This means both the husband and wife equally own all money earned by either one of them from the beginning of the marriage until the date of separation. In addition, all property acquired during the marriage with "community" money is owned equally by both the wife and husband, regardless of who purchased it.  Like community assets, all debts contracted from the beginning of the marriage until the date of separation are community debts. Therefore, each spouse is equally liable for debts. A full...

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Thoughts on Estate Planning and Over-Seas Flights

Imagine that you are preparing to fly an airplane from Los Angeles to Honolulu. You know that airplane engines need to be serviced and overhauled after a certain number of hours of operation and you also know that the plane you are going to fly to Honolulu, over 3,000 miles of open water, has not been serviced recently. Would you choose to ignore the service requirements of the engines of that airplane, knowing that  you have only one chance to get it right and that failure is not a viable option, particularly when that plane must travel non-stop for 3,000...

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Estate Planning Attorneys Will Keep Busy After 2012 Election Results

Good morning America.  President Obama has won another four-year term as President of the United States! So what might that mean for the estate and gift tax laws?  While the President certainly surprised most everyone in December 2010 by temporarily raising the exemption equivalent of the unified credit to $5,000,000 and lowering the transfer tax rates to 35%, those hoping for the estate tax to disappear should probably not look for another similar surprise. The probability is now greater that we’ll have lower exemption amounts (as low as $1,000,000) and higher transfer tax rates (as high as 55%).  Let me be clear,...

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Top 10 Reasons Not To Do Estate Planning

Estate Planning is something everyone should implement yet so many do nothing until it is too late. So, we put together this Top 10 list as a parody to lighten the mood and hopefully open your eyes to the importance of proper estate planning. My spouse doesn’t need any direction or help in what to do or whom to call in the event of my death; if anything happens to me he/she will have no trouble figuring it out at that time. I plan on living forever, anyway. I don’t have any assets to speak of, just a house, a...

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Grant Named Top Estate Planning Lawyer in Southern Nevada

Attorney David Grant was recently named as one of Southern Nevada’s “Top Lawyers” for Estate Planning by Desert Companion Magazine in its October 2012 issue.  Click here to read this issue online (see pages 69-88).  Mr. Grant is one of the partners at the Law Firm of Grant Morris Dodds, a law firm specializing in the areas of Trusts, Probate, Guardianship, and Asset Protection. According to the magazine’s masthead, “Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans.  With award-winning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain.  [It]...

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Estate Planning Horror Stories: Lessons Learned

(Republished from Vegas PBS Source Magazine; October, 2103) For many, the thought of Halloween conjures up frightful images of haunted attractions, horror films, and gruesome costumes.  While these things might scare small children and pets, most folks would see them as entertaining, amusing, or even trivial.  For those seeking a truly horrifying experience for themselves and their loved ones, there’s nothing entertaining, amusing, or trivial about a poorly planned estate. As an estate planning and probate attorney I have witnessed some of the most horrifying of events.  I’ve seen accidental disinheritances, excessive taxes paid, costly probate litigation, the collapse of small businesses,...

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Obama’s New IDGT Proposal

[vc_row triangle_shape="no"][vc_column][vc_column_text]By Attorney David M. Grant President Obama’s administration has recently proposed a change to the federal income and estate tax laws that would make the use of the Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (“IDGT”) strategy essentially useless.  Important elements of the administration’s IDGT proposal can be found here. As a summary of the key features of the proposal, it would: Include the assets of  an IDGT in the gross estate of the grantor for estate tax purposes; Subject to gift tax any distribution from the IDGT to one or more beneficiaries during the grantor’s life; and Subject to gift tax the remaining IDGT assets at...

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