Mother’s Little Helper

Using Your Elderly Parent’s Unused Estate Tax Exemption to Obtain a New Step-Up in Basis This article has nothing to do with the Rolling Stones song by the same name, but for a tax lawyer to get the attention of some that are less tax oriented, one has to be a little creative. Indeed, the…

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Password Purgatory and Digital Assets

The Daunting Task That May Occur Upon Your Incapacity or Death These days, virtually every aspect of my life is shrouded in secret passwords and user names. I added up the number of vendors, banks and financial institutions, charitable organizations, clubs, social media accounts and other miscellaneous accounts for which I have passwords or PIN…

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Choosing the Right Trustee

For some people, selecting a Trustee or Trustees to carry out the terms of their Will or Trust can be challenging.  The selection process involves the balancing of various factors both personal and professional.  Sometimes, there are no family members that have the ability, maturity, or desire to handle such responsibility. In other cases there…

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Estate Plan Check-up

Just as you should periodically review your investments to determine if they are meeting your current objectives, you should periodically have your estate plan and the related estate planning documents reviewed .  If you haven’t had your estate planning documents reviewed recently, perhaps it is time for a check-up.  In our practice, we find that…

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Did you update your Power of Attorney?

The Florida legislature recently enacted legislation which beefed up the previously modest (7 page) statute concerning powers of attorney under Chapter 709 into a comprehensive set of provisions that is now known as “The Florida Power of Attorney Act” (hereinafter “The Act”) which became effective on October 1, 2011 (now 27 pages in length). Due…

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2013 Changes to Federal Estate Tax Laws

Changes to income taxes grabbed the lion’s share of the attention as the President and Congress squabbled over how to halt the country’s journey towards the “fiscal cliff.”  However, negotiations over exemptions and tax rates for estate taxes, gift taxes and generation-skipping taxes also occurred on Capitol Hill, albeit with less fanfare. The primary fear…

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