NEED FOR UPDATED ESTATE PLANNING WHEN ONE SPOUSE GOES INTO NURSING HOME When one spouse goes into a nursing home, there is a good chance that he/she is using to pay for their care. That means that the community spouse will have to live survive on certain income thresholds determined by…
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS Most people are aware that April 15 is tax day. That simply means that you have to have your taxes filed and paid by that date and that the year that those taxes are due for are from January 1st to December 31st of the…
HUGUETTE CLARK AS EXEMPLAR The last member of the gilded age passed away just a few years ago. Huguette Clark’s life, in some ways, seems to mirror the classic Orson Welles classic One of the first things that she did to insure an estate battle was to pass the entirety of her…
SOMETIMES MAY BE BETTER TO DISTRIBUTE THAN HOLD ON Most trustees know that they have to make an accounting and pay taxes on at least a quarterly basis. While accounting itself may seem like a relatively simple theoretical proposition, the truth is much different. The devil is in the details.…
FOCUS ON COMFORT Hospice care is intended to ensure that those who are in the final stages of a terminal illness are cared for and comfortable. It is not to cure a current disease process. Instead it is to help provide a more holistic or all encompassing level of care.…
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN ESTATE PLANNING This blog explored the generic topic of intellectual property in estate planning in the recent past, which is worth reading for a discussion on the larger topic. Estate planning for the artist or even the art collector is certainly related but worthy of its own…
MONEY LEFT IN IRA AT TIME OF PASSING NOT SUBJECT TO NORMAL IRA RULES This blog previously discussed the Supreme Court case of Clark v. Rameker and the legal implications of money remaining in an IRA at death, that is in turn left to the heirs of an estate. Putting…
GOVERNMENT HAS BEST AT HAND – FOR FREE Whenever a taxpayer submits tax documents that deal with a work of art or of cultural significance that is valued at least $50,000, according to the taxpayer’s own estimate, the IRS goes through a process by which it independently evaluates the items.…
ESTATE PLAN AND CONTINUATION OF FARM PLAN No doubt that anymore the running of a family farm is much like running a small business with other family members intimately involved. Often enough the continuation of the family farm requires that the current and main farmer, much like the ‘president and…
PROBATE IS UNAVOIDABLE It is a fact of life that we can never plan for the worse case scenario and there is always risk in anything you do. The law recognizes this special risk, at least in part, in wrongful death lawsuits. In order for a wrongful death action to…