A line from President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan,” was the mission statement for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) for decades. The VA offers many different benefits to those who served in…
Read More
Small businesses predominate the United States.[1] Many of those businesses operate through entities taxed as partnerships.[2] Those entities may be general partnerships, limited partnerships, LLC’s, or other state law entity types.[3] Many partnerships are formed as part of family and estate planning. Some benefits of the use of partnerships in estate planning include, but are…
Read More
Individuals approaching age 65 have some very important decisions to make, however, they may not be aware of the potential long-term consequences of these decisions. One of the most important decisions is which Medicare programs to enroll in. Among the choices are Medicare Advantage plans (also known as Medicare Part C, and previously referred to…
Read More
Split dollar life insurance arrangements can take on a number of forms, and the exact structure of the arrangement determines the tax consequences, which can become complicated quickly. In a recent case out of the District Court of Ohio, the court held that an insurance arrangement between a single member C corporation, Peter E. McGowan…
Read More
Currently (and since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017), we, like many other practitioners, have seen an incredible uptick in inclusion planning[1] instead of the traditional exclusion planning (getting assets out of one’s taxable estate). A primary driving force for this major shift was the essential doubling of the estate tax exemption (from…
Read More
Shortly before his passing, Benjamin Franklin uttered one of his more infamous quotes, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” With the certainty of death implicitly comes another: everyone will transfer his or her wealth, whether in life or after death. How a person transfers wealth will affect how the other certainty,…
Read More
Recently, an attorney friend of mine involved in a family legal matter concerning trust administration called to ask me what probably seemed like a simple question – is a trust a legal entity? The point of the question related to procedural aspects of trust administration, issues involving duties of the attorney involved, and related considerations.…
Read More
Monetized Installment Sales, as previously written upon by Gray Edmondson,[1] have been subject to increased scrutiny by the IRS in recent years, making its “Dirty Dozen” list in each of the last three years.[2] The IRS remains on the offensive in scrutinizing such transactions, issuing proposed regulation under Internal Revenue Code Section 6011 in August…
Read More
If you’ve ever owned a home in Mississippi, you are probably familiar with the concept of homestead exemption, if for no other reason than to reduce the amount of ad valorum (property) taxes you pay each year. While filing for the homestead exemption in Mississippi does provide the benefit of reducing these taxes, its main…
Read More
Many individuals take out life insurance policies for valid planning reasons which later are no longer needed or desirable. Alternatively, the policy owner may need current liquidity. While many policies can be surrendered for their cash value or the owner may take loans against the policy, there may be other options. One of those options…
Read More