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 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 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

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

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? 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

Make health care decisions while you’re healthy BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Estate planning isn’t just about what happens to your assets after you die. It’s also about protecting yourself and your loved ones. This includes having a plan for making critical medical decisions in the event you’re unable to make them yourself. And, as with other [...]Continue reading

Beware if your estate plan leaves specific assets to specific heirs BY THEUS LAW OFFICES Planning your estate around specific assets is risky and, in most cases, should be avoided. If you leave specific assets — such as homes, cars or stock — to specific people, you may inadvertently disinherit them.Illustrating the problem Illustrating the problem [...]Continue reading

Leave your mark with a dynasty trust BY THEUS LAW OFFICES If a prime objective of your estate plan is to leave a lasting legacy, a dynasty trust may be the right estate planning vehicle for you. And, thanks to the substantially increased generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption amount established by the Tax Cuts and Jobs [...]Continue reading