Not a Big Fan of the Federal Estate and Gift Tax Exemption Rules

By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) I’ll be the one to come out and say what many of us are thinking… I’m not a big fan of the federal estate and gift tax exemption rules!  The exemption is currently $12.92 million per person, adjusting for inflation each year, and then dropping in half when the clock hits midnight the night of December 31, 2025.  Cinderella!  Cinderella! Ability to Plan How can we possibly plan for our clients when we don’t know whether each unmarried client will have roughly $15 million of exemption versus roughly $7.5 million of exemption, or…

New Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) Provisions in SECURE Act 2.0 – Some Welcome, Some Dubious

By Edwin P. Morrow, III, J.D., LL.M., MBA, CFP®, CM&AA® and Nancy H. Welber, J.D., ACTEC Thanks to the generosity of Leimberg Information Services, we are pleased to provide you this recently published article on LISI. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Section 307 of the SECURE 2.0 Act, effective beginning in 2023, provides an expansion of the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) provisions to adjust for inflation and include limited distributions to fund charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts. There are several limitations that severely restrict the usefulness of this new provision, however, particularly for QCDs to charitable remainder trusts. FACTS Congress recently…

Don’t Let an Outdated Website Drag Down Your Estate Planning Practice

By Foster Web Marketing The problem with websites is that they aren’t a one-and-done-thing. You have to add content. You have to keep up on the maintenance. And, over time, you have to be able to recognize when it’s time for an upgrade. Technical standards for websites change every few years. People’s expectations for websites change, as well. The website that looked and worked great three years ago probably doesn’t look or work so well today. And that’s why, every few years or so, you need to redesign your website and bring it up to speed with today’s standards. If…