Blog

IRS Year End Tips for Charitable Giving

November 24th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
IRS has tips for you as you start to think about making charitable gifts this year. You can find the Tax Tips here, but we have reprinted much of the pertinent information for you: Qualified charities. You can only deduct gifts you give to qualified… Read More
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Categories: News

Q&A: Can My Father-In-Law Give Us a 14k Gift? Can He Give Us More?

November 18th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
Occasionally, we will reprint questions and answers from clients – always with their permission and always edited for confidentiality. So a client wrote me an email today that is fairly common, especially this time of year, when clients talk to… Read More
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Categories: Gifts, Q & A

New Second Marriage Statistics Brings Trust Planning for Spouses into Sharp Focus

November 17th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
One the main reasons many of my clients want to create a testamentary trust for their spouse – something we typically call generally a “Marital Trust” is the fear that after their death, their husband or wife (but typically the fear is more… Read More
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Categories: News

A Five Million Dollar Deadline Is Approaching

November 13th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
The IRS extension of time to elect portability of an unused estate tax exemption expires on December 31. If you had a spouse die in 2011, 2012 or 2013, you should be looking into an important December 31, 2014 deadline. The IRS granted an extension o… Read More
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Categories: News

UPDATED: Change in IRA Rollover Rules for 2015

November 5th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
If you are in the habit of annually rolling over funds in multiple IRAs, you may need to start using trustee-to-trustee transfers instead. This is because IRS will enforce a limit on the total number of rollovers in any 12 month period. As noted on t… Read More
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Categories: IRAs, News

IRS Gift and Retirement Savings Limits for 2015 Go Up a Little

November 3rd, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
Every year around this time, IRS publishes a Revenue Procedure that sets out the estate and gift tax limits for the following year. This year, Revenue Procedure 2014-61 sets them as follows: 1. Each individual’s “Lifetime Gift Exclusion&#… Read More
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Categories: News

Beneficiary Designations - The Stealth Will

October 27th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
Why Your Beneficiary Designations Are More Important, and More Dangerous, than You Think Many of our clients spend hours pouring over the estate planning documents we prepare, cogitating on the best way to provide for their children, and insuring tha… Read More
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Categories: News

National Estate Planning Awareness Week

October 20th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
Yes, there really is a week for everything. In 2008 the House of Representatives passed H. Res 1499, which encourages the distribution of estate planning information by professionals to all Americans and which supports the designation of a “Nat… Read More
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Categories: News

The New Maryland Estate Tax Law

October 13th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
On May 15, Maryland’s Governor signed the Maryland Estate Tax Bill, HB0739, which will raise the Maryland estate tax exemption from $1 million dollars, where it has sat for over a decade, to ultimately equal the Federal estate tax exemption in 2019… Read More
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Categories: News

Those with less Are Giving More . . . and Those with More Are Giving . . ?

October 10th, 2014
Posted By
Marc S. Levine
The Chronicle of Philanthropy released a study of charitable giving between 2006-2012, showing that lower and middle income Americans are giving more, as a share of total income than before, and that higher income Americans are giving less as a share… Read More
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Categories: News
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