ESTATE PLANNING
Please contact me if you would like to discuss the provisions of your current estate plan or create a new one. A good estate plan empowers the people and institutions you choose to manage your affairs, creates an efficient plan to protect your assets and your beneficiaries, avoids the costs and delays of probate, and minimizes income and transfer taxes. I can help you select the people and plan that makes sense for you and your beneficiaries.
ESTATE ADMINISTRATION
Please contact me if you would like to discuss the estate administration process. I regularly advise and assist executors, administrators, personal representatives, and trustees with respect to their duties, and also serve in these roles if needed. When you administer an estate, you are managing assets for others and are therefore considered a “fiduciary,” charged with a high degree of care and duties to the court, tax authorities, creditors, and beneficiaries. The work falls into three main categories: (1) estate and trust administration work (with or without mandatory court involvement), (2) income tax work, and (3) estate tax work. Within these broad categories, there are many tasks and considerations. Creating an action plan early on can make the process unfold more smoothly and prevent costly errors.
ESTATE AND GIFT TAX RETURN
I advise clients on gifting, transfer taxes, portability, and the current federal estate tax law, which is scheduled to change significantly on January 1, 2026. I also prepare gift and estate tax returns. An estate tax return is required if someone dies and their gross estate and lifetime taxable gifts exceed the exemption. If an estate tax return is not required, under a new IRS rule, many surviving spouses now have five years to file an optional estate tax return to claim the deceased spouse’s unused exemption (“portability election”). The unused exemption represents a tax credit that can be worth millions of dollars to your beneficiaries in terms of estate tax savings. A gift tax return is required if you make gifts to individuals in excess of the “gift tax annual exclusion” or make gifts of any amount to certain trusts. Transferring assets to irrevocable trusts during your lifetime reduces the size of a taxable estate and can produce excellent results in terms of maximizing the value of assets that are transferred to your beneficiaries.