Have You Had Your Annual Estate Plan Checkup?

Have You Had Your Annual Estate Plan Checkup? BY THEUS LAW OFFICES An annual estate plan checkup is critical to the health of your estate plan. Because various exclusion, exemption and deduction amounts are adjusted for inflation, they can change from year to year, impacting your plan. 2019 vs. 2018 Amounts Here are a few key [...]Continue reading

Exemption from Naturalization Interview Language Requirement

Exemption from Naturalization Interview Language Requirement BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Often times, individuals do not become permanent residents until much later in life. This often occurs when adult United States citizen children who are over twenty-one filing a petition on behalf of their much older non-citizen parent. As a result, many of these parents are not [...]Continue reading

Hastily Choosing an Executor Can Lead to Problems After Your Death

Hastily Choosing an Executor Can Lead to Problems After Your Death BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Choosing the right executor — sometimes known as a “personal representative” — is critical to the smooth administration of an estate. Yet many people treat this decision as an afterthought. Given an executor’s many responsibilities and complex tasks, it pays to [...]Continue reading

An ESOP Can Benefit a Business Owner’s Retirement and Estate Plans

An ESOP Can Benefit a Business Owner’s Retirement and Estate Plans BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) offer closely held business owners an exit strategy and a tax-efficient technique for sharing equity with employees. But did you know that an ESOP can be a powerful estate planning tool? It can help you address [...]Continue reading

Building an On-Off Switch Into Your Estate Plan

Building an On-Off Switch Into Your Estate Plan BY THEUS LAW OFFICES The right estate planning strategy for you likely is the one that will produce the greatest tax savings for your family. Unfortunately, there can be tension between strategies that save estate tax and ones that save income tax. This is especially true now that [...]Continue reading

What You Need to Know About Filing Gift and Estate Tax Returns

What You Need to Know About Filing Gift and Estate Tax Returns BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Have you made substantial gifts of wealth to family members? Or are you the executor of the estate of a loved one who died recently? If so, you need to know whether you must file a gift or estate tax [...]Continue reading

Properly Funding Your Revocable Trust is the Key to Unlocking its Benefits

Properly Funding Your Revocable Trust is the Key to Unlocking its Benefits BY THEUS LAW OFFICES If your estate plan includes a revocable trust — also known as a “living” trust — it’s critical to ensure that the trust is properly funded. Revocable trusts offer significant benefits, including asset management (in the event you become incapacitated) [...]Continue reading

Add Spendthrift Language to a Trust to Safeguard Assets

Add Spendthrift Language to a Trust to Safeguard Assets BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Protecting assets from creditors is a critical aspect of estate planning, but you need to think about more than just your own creditors: You also need to consider your heirs’ creditors. Adding spendthrift language to a trust benefiting your heirs can help safeguard [...]Continue reading

Single parent with 2 children in front of a house

Estate planning for single parents requires special considerations

Estate planning for single parents requires special considerations BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Here’s a fast fact: The percentage of U.S. children who live with an unmarried parent has jumped from 13% in 1968 to 32% in 2017, according to Pew Research Center’s most recent poll. While estate planning for single parents is similar to estate planning [...]Continue reading

Does your estate plan include a formula funding clause?

Does your estate plan include a formula funding clause? BY THEUS LAW OFFICES The gift and estate tax exemption is higher than it’s ever been, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which temporarily doubled the exemption to an inflation-adjusted $10 million ($20 million for married couples who design their estate plans properly). This year, the [...]Continue reading

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