Category Archives: Estate Planning
The Federal Estate Tax Exemption After the 2026 Tax Law: What Changed and What Didn’t
For years, estate planning articles carried the same warning: the generous federal estate tax exemption from 2017 was scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025, and unless Congress acted, it would roughly cut in half. Writers made it sound like a countdown clock, urging wealthy families to give away as much as they… Read More »
Naming a Donor-Advised Fund vs. a Charitable Trust in Your Estate Plan
Giving to causes you care about does not have to end when your estate settles. Plenty of people build charitable giving into their estate plan, whether that means supporting an animal shelter, a house of worship, or a scholarship fund at their old school. The harder question is not whether to give, but how…. Read More »
No Health Care Proxy? New York Has Already Picked Someone for You
Most people assume that if they never signed a health care proxy, nobody has the authority to speak for them in a hospital. The reality is closer to the opposite. New York has a default answer to the question of who decides, and it is written into state law as a ranked list. The… Read More »
Does Your Estate Plan Require Your Children to Sell Their Childhood Home?
In crafting your estate plan, you have probably put a lot of thought into protecting your children from financial burdens. Maybe you have been giving cash gifts to family members for as long as you have been able to afford it, to make sure that your estate is not subject to federal estate tax…. Read More »
The Elder Care Financial Crisis Can Begin Long Before a Medical Emergency
There are plenty of ways to measure the vast divide between the fortunate few and everyone else. You have managed to live a happy life by being at peace with the fact that everyone has finite financial resources. Most of the time, it does not cause you great emotional distress. You are fine with… Read More »
Ancillary Probate Blues
Having roots in more than one place is common these days, and people adjust their rites of passage to reflect this reality. For example, you might have several birthday celebrations, one with your family and one with your coworkers, especially if you expect that things would be tense in a joint celebration because the… Read More »
How to Revoke an Irrevocable Trust
When you start reading online about trusts, they sound like the best of all possible worlds. A trust can make your property invisible to the Surrogate’s Court and to creditors. It is like creating a doppelganger of yourself that gets to spend your money but doesn’t have to pay taxes. Mortality has no effect… Read More »
Decanting a Trust
People who can afford to retire are the lucky few, but there are clear signs if you are one of them. For example, if you have ever decanted anything, and known that this was what you were doing, you have probably accumulated enough wealth to have access to the finer things in life. Decanting… Read More »
Minors Inheriting Property
According to a popular stereotype, grandparents love to spoil their grandchildren, even if, a generation earlier, they were strict or aloof toward their own children. Regardless of the nature of your interactions with your grandchildren, they probably take center stage in your estate plan. You want to set aside money for your own long-term… Read More »
Personal Representative Drama and How to Deal With It
Imagine a bride with two sisters, each of whom wants to be the maid of honor at her wedding. As soon as her fiancé put the engagement ring on her finger, scenarios begin to play in her head about how to break the news to one or the other sister that she did not… Read More »