Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The TEN Hottest Estate Planning Topics


First, in order to be a hot topic, people, lots of people, have to be talking about it all the time. Remember, the 2005 Terri Schiavo case which received national attention. Living Wills, an estate planning document, received front page notoriety and was the topic of discussion around "water fountains", coffee shops, chat rooms, you get the picture. It was all a buzz!! So, given that a Living Will which pertains to whether a person would want life support if terminally ill can get that type of sustained attention, I do believe we can create just such a buzz for the rest of estate planning.

As the First hot topic, I begin with the potential elimination of the Federal Estate tax. Under the current law, there will be no Federal Estate tax in 2010. It was anticipated that Congress would have addressed this issue before it was upon us. But, only one year away and we are looking at the elimination. As a result, people, lots of people have been talking about Estate Tax. Just a few days ago on the front page of the Wall Street Journal the headline was "Obama Plans to Keep Estate Tax". Some members of congress want to act quickly to prevent the estate tax scheduled repeal. This has been a debut among the wealthy since this federal tax currently affects estates in excess of 3.5 million. If your estate is under that amount, it is not an issue for you at this time. Since the tax is 45% of the estate, this is not a small issue for those impacted. For now, this is a hot topic and we will be discussing it along with our other hot topics. SHARE YOUR COMMENTS!!!

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