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estate tax

Do You Have The Will?

Statistics show us that approximately 70% of all Americans don’t have a valid will. Are you one of them? With that statistic, chances are that you don’t. This means that in a circle of four people, three probably don’t have a will. This situation begs an obvious question: Do I need a will? One simple way to determine if you need a will is if you can’t truthfully answer “No” to both of the following questions: Do you care who gets your money and property when you die? Do you care who is appointed guardian of your minor children if you die? If you answered “Yes” to either or both of those questions, you need a will! Otherwise, state laws will determine the outcome of those situations – and it’s not likely that you would have made the same decisions that the state would. Why should you have a will? A will […]

Annual Gift Tax Exclusion Amount Remains the Same for 2014

All individuals have the opportunity to give gifts annually to any person, and as many persons as they wish, without having to file a gift tax return.  For 2013, the amount of the annual exclusion is $14,000; it remains the same for 2014. This means that anyone can give a gift of up to $14,000 to any person for any reason without worrying about possible gift tax implications.  A married couple can double this amount to $28,000. In 2014, this annual exclusion amount will remain the same at $14,000 ($28,000 for couples). For amounts given in excess of the annual exclusion amount, every individual has a lifetime exclusion amount, against which the excess gifts are credited.  For 2013, the lifetime exclusion amount is $5,250,000.  For 2014, the lifetime exclusion amount for giving is increased to $5,340,000.  These are the same exclusion amounts as for estates in 2014.

Pre-Death Planning: Roth Conversion

Image via Wikipedia Financial planning often requires us to face our own certain demise – something that we often don’t want to do, but still a certainty that we all must face. Among the things that we want to do when planning for the inevitable would be to make certain that our surviving loved ones have access to adequate monetary resources to support themselves, in the most cost-effective manner.  Another thing that we hope to accomplish is to make the transition as easy as possible for our loved ones.  One way to do this is to convert a good portion of your IRA or other tax-deferred funds to a Roth IRA account.  Here’s why: By converting to a Roth account, you will make the funds in that account available to your heirs totally tax free. Granted, your estate will also be smaller by the amount of tax that you paid […]

A Beneficiary Designation Dilemma

Image by Ben Saren via Flickr Since families today are different and more complicated from the traditional situation, with ex-spouses, children from first and subsequent marriages, and children from unions where a marriage didn’t take place, designating beneficiaries for IRA accounts can be very complex. For example, it’s not out of the question for an individual to have re-married later in life and have children from an earlier marriage. In addition, the new spouse could have children from his or her previous marriage.  And then possibly children resulting from the current marriage. So, this individual might wish to leave the proceeds of his IRA to his or her current spouse first and foremost at his or her passing – but then to split the remainder of the account among his or her children from the first marriage and the children from the second marriage equally. If you know anything about […]