Estate & Financial Planning Articles
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U.S. Treasury Issues Rev. Proc. 2023-34 Detailing Changes to Estate, Gift & Generation Skipping Transfer Tax Rates & SECURE Act 2.0 Revisions for 2024 & Beyond
On November 11, 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department issued Rev. Proc. 2023-34 releasing the 2024 inflation-adjusted exemptions for estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax as follows: The estate and gift exemption amount (currently $12.92 million in 2023) will increase to $13.61 million per taxpayer for 2024 ($27.22 million per married couple). The generation-skipping transfer tax…
Modifying Irrevocable Trusts in North Carolina: What You Need to Know
Irrevocable trusts, by design, are meant to remain unchanged. However, life’s unpredictability and evolving legal landscapes can sometimes necessitate alterations. More commonly, at the death of a revocable or “living” trust’s creator, their trust immediately becomes irrevocable. In addition, trusts created under a person’s last will and testament (testamentary trusts) are likewise irrevocable, coming into…
Year-End Gift, Tax, Retirement, & Estate Planning
As another year-end approaches, tasks on your financial “to-do” list should include a reexamination of your current gifting, retirement, and estate planning and act on key year-end planning opportunities. A review of your current estate planning and current financial position can help you ensure that you are taking full advantage of all tax-saving opportunities and…
Limited vs. General Power of Appointments: Enhancing Estate Planning Flexibility
Within wills or trust documents, a power of appointment grants an individual, known as the power holder or donee, the authority to designate another person, the appointee, as the recipient of all or a portion of assets. Powers of appointment can serve as powerful estate planning tools, offering significant tax planning opportunities. While we cannot…
What Exactly Is Estate Planning And When Do We Need It?
Estate planning encompasses a wide variety of subject matter, from how your assets may be titled and who is the beneficiary of your insurance to IRAs and 401(k)s, to the creation of business entities, the establishment of buy-sell agreements, the creation of trusts and gifting during your lifetime. The process allows you, rather than a…
Is Estate Planning Just For What Happens After I Die Or Can Estate Planning Benefit Me During My Lifetime?
In my experience, it is often much more important to plan in anticipation of incapacity during your lifetime. For example, what would happen if one spouse becomes incapacitated, needing to go into a nursing home and the other spouse needs to sell the primary residence during that time? Without a plan in place, such as…
IRS Issues Inflation Adjustments for Transfer Taxes Related to Estates and Trusts
In Rev. Proc 2022-38, the IRS provided inflation adjustments for various IRS Code provisions for taxable year 2023, including many relevant to trusts, estates, and gifts. The 2023 inflation adjustments include: The basic estate and gift tax exclusion amount (and the generation skipping transfer tax amount) will increase to $12,920,000 from the 2002 exemption of…
Year-End Gifting
Towards the end of the year, some families consider making financial gifts to others as part of their year-end tax planning. As part of your estate plan, you may consider sharing your financial success with your children, grandchildren, or other loved ones before your death. First, let’s review gifts that aren’t taxable. Gifts that are…
Planning for Beneficiaries with Disabilities
Planning for Beneficiaries with Disabilities Estate planning is important for all families to ensure that an individual’s wishes are honored after they pass away. When the guardian of a person with disabilities or primary caretaker is making arrangements for their own planning, it’s ideal and necessary to answer several questions regarding the person under their…
What Exactly Is a Trust, and Do I Need Different Types of Trusts in My Estate Plan?
A trust is essentially a contract between two people, one who is the grantor of the trust and the other the trustee or beneficiary. These can be the same individual, the grantor of the trust can also be the trustee. That’s contrary to contract law where generally you cannot enter into a contract with yourself,…
How Do I Plan for Possible Incapacity During My Lifetime? What Estate Planning Documents Are Necessary?
There are several estate planning documents that we prepare for our clients to anticipate some form of incapacity, including: Healthcare powers of attorney Durable powers of attorney, and Trusts. Healthcare powers of attorney are distinguishable from durable financial powers of attorney, in that they are limited to only the scope of making healthcare decisions for…
Common Disputes and How to Resolve Them
In my experience, there are only two or three things that truly create a hostile relationship and contention within a family during an estate administration process. What can lead to litigation in many instances is when one beneficiary feels they are entitled to more, or something different, than the other beneficiaries, even though the estate…
What Is Probate And When Is Probate Triggered In North Carolina?
Probate is the court-supervised process over which personal assets are transferred out of the individual names into the names of their heirs or beneficiaries after death. Whether you go through probate or not will be determined by the level of estate planning. If the descendent died with no will and no other estate planning was…
What Happens If Somebody Dies With Property But No Will?
It is a common assumption between spouses that at the death of the first spouse to die, the surviving spouse will inherit all the deceased’s property. This is usually not the case. If the individual or the deceased spouse has any children, whether from the first marriage or by the marriage to the surviving spouse,…
Administration Of Proper and Intestate Estates
We can demonstrate the importance of estate planning by comparing two estates with different approaches to estate planning. On one side of the continuum, we have an individual who has assets but no estate planning. On the other end of the continuum, we’ll have someone who has assets of the exact same nature, but they…
How Often Should I Review My Estate Planning Documents?
In a perfect world, you should review your estate planning documents every time there is a life event, such as a, Birth, Death, Marriage, Divorce, or Retirement. You also want to review them with the acquisition or sale of a significant asset, like that of a business. These are times to pull out your estate…
What Are the Most Important Components That Should Be Part of Everyone’s Estate Plan?
Determining what the objectives are, implementing a plan that meets those objectives in a way that conforms to the laws of the tax code and treasury regulations is important when planning any estate. To accomplish this, our approach is to sit down to listen to the client. The first question we ask is, “Tell us…
What Exactly Is Estate Planning And When Do We Need It?
Estate planning encompasses a wide variety of subject matter, from how your assets may be titled and who is the beneficiary of your insurance to IRAs and 401(k)s, to the creation of business entities, the establishment of buy-sell agreements, the creation of trusts and gifting during your lifetime. The process allows you, rather than a…
Estate Planning For Beneficiaries With Mental Illness
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 19.1% (nearly 1 in 5) of U.S. adults experience mental illness annually. Historically, discussions surrounding mental illness were taboo and off-limits. However, thanks to the hard work of mental health professionals and a generally greater awareness of the causes of mental illness, some, but not all, of…
