When Marc MacGinnis was in the hospital awaiting surgery, he asked his friend Brent to prepare a will for him that would leave half of his estate to Brent and half to Marc’s sister, Susan. Brent downloaded some will forms from the Internet, but Susan then suggested that she contact a lawyer to set up a trust instead. She said this would be better because it would avoid probate. Susan never talked to a lawyer, and
What’s the legal status of a child who was conceived after a parent’s death? That question would have been ridiculous not many years ago, but with advances in fertility treatments and the ability to freeze embryos and store sperm for later use, a number of children are now being conceived after one biological parent has passed away. This has created a number of legal issues. For instance, the Supreme Court recently decided whether twins who were
A new 3.8% tax on investment income will take effect in 2013, and anyone who has significant investments or who manages a trust should be planning for it now. The tax was included in President Obama’s health care law. In the past, many people didn’t plan for the tax because they thought the law might be struck down by the Supreme Court. But now that the Supreme Court has upheld the law, the tax will take
An enormous opportunity for families to reduce their estate taxes – and in some cases, save millions of dollars – will end on December 31, 2012. If there’s a chance you can take advantage of these savings, it’s wise to act immediately, because unless Congress changes the law, the window of opportunity will close permanently when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. Between now and the end of the year, the lifetime exemption from the
Experienced investors don’t need to be convinced about the inherent volatility of the stock market. Prices seem to soar and plummet regularly. One possible investment strategy for smoothing out the inevitable ups and downs is called “dollar cost averaging.” But this long-standing investment method has as many detractors as proponents. The basic concept is relatively simple. Essentially, you invest a fixed amount of money in shares of the same stock at regular intervals – usually, on
Did you know that this year you can give gifts of up to $13,000 to as many individuals as you want without being liable for gift tax? Normally, any gift you make counts towards your lifetime exemption from gift and estate taxes. That’s so you don’t just give away your estate shortly before death to avoid estate taxes. But each year you can make an unlimited number of gifts free of tax, provided they’re below a
Getting the most benefit from tax deductions requires multi-year planning as well as consideration of the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The multi-year part involves “bunching” your expenses. That’s a strategy where you decide to accelerate or delay payments between different years for itemized deductions such as state income taxes, routine health care, and charitable contributions. You calculate the tax savings for each year and choose the most advantageous time to pay the expense and claim the
If you requested a six-month extension to file your 2011 income tax return, you face a major deadline on October 15. That’s the final date for filing your 2011 return; the IRS does not give filing extensions beyond that date. October 15 is also the deadline for undoing a 2011 conversion of a regular IRA to a Roth IRA. If you did a conversion to a Roth last year, you can switch it back to a
Scholarships, grants, student loans. Learning about the options available to help you pay for your child’s college expenses requires a lot of homework. Here’s one more thing to study: how to coordinate those sources of funds with your overall financial plan. As you probably know, your income and assets, as well as those of your child, affect eligibility for federal student aid. What may not be so obvious is the role early financial planning can play.
More and more companies are using Twitter and other social media sites to promote their businesses. Often, an employee or a group of employees will have the job of tweeting regularly about the company’s products and services. However, this raises the question of what happens if an employee with a Twitter account quits or is fired. The issue came up recently when an employee named Noah Kravitz started tweeting for his employer, a company called PhoneDog.com.
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