New Jersey Estate Planning, Probate, Tax & Elder Law Center

Your Information source for wills, trusts, estate tax minimization, powers of attorney, living wills, health care directives, special needs trusts, asset protection, charitable giving, guardianship, succession planning, retirement and estate administration.

Estate Tax Pitfalls Seen In Court Case

Few things get people madder at their estate planners than fights over who must pay taxes when someone dies. A big source of trouble: the patchwork of state rules that apply. Most states say those who inherit have to share the tax burden for an estate. Many wills include provisions designed to take care of [...]

2010 Estate Tax Repeal and New Capital Gains Regime

Congress instead substituted a new system of taxation that will potentially collect more taxes from many of our clients than the estate tax.

New Jersey State Income Taxation of 2010 Conversion of a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA

Therefore, New Jersey also conforms to the…provision regarding the Federal Income Tax reporting of a distribution from an IRA which the taxpayer converts into a Roth IRA this year in 2010.

What is an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT)?

Many people aren’t aware that all of the proceeds from life insurance policies that they own at death will be included their estate for estate tax purposes. This is because if the policy owner can withdraw the cash value and change the beneficiary, then the policy owner will be deemed to have incidents of ownership [...]

IRA Beneficiary Designation Planning

When an estate or another non-individual is a primary beneficiary, the entire IRA must be distributed within five years after the original owner’s passing.

Naming A Minor as Your IRA Beneficiary

IRAs and qualified plans are great vehicles for saving for retirement. Contributions to the plans are not taxed, and the assets inside the plan enjoy tax free reinvestment and accumulation. The income tax is payable only when the assets are withdrawn from the plan. Unfortunately, while IRAs and other retirement plans are great for retirement [...]

A perfect storm for gifting…

Every storm eventually comes to an end…Now is the time to gift.

Why should you do estate planning in a down economy?

1.             Business and real estate values may be down as much as 20% since last year at this time.  This creates opportunities for transferring the business, stock or assets to children or key employees at significantly less tax cost than prior years.  The transferor will use less of their lifetime annual gift exemption of $1.0 [...]

A Good Time To Review Estate Tax Plans: Decline in asset value prompts new strategies

Now is a particularly good time for business owners to think about estate tax planning.