Failing to take action or making the wrong moves can be costly for you and your heirs. Here are six blunders experts told us they see most often, and what to do instead. Estate planning experts have noticed some trends over the years when it comes to making mistakes in one’s estate plan. Some mistakes […]

The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed a bill to provide gift tax certainty to individuals who make gifts to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, 501(c)(5) labor unions, and 501(c)(6) trade associations. In a related move, the House also passed a bill to repeal the federal estate tax (H.R. 1105, the “Death Tax Repeal Act”). […]

A Brooklyn woman scammed $300,000 from her friends by telling them she had inherited a boatload of cash but needed their dough to pay off the estate’s taxes and liens, prosecutors said Tuesday. Have you heard of the standard inheritance scam? A scammer pretends to be an attorney or estate agent. They tell a potential […]

The United Jewish Appeal claims it was supposed to get the remainder of a trust set up by building mogul Bill Gottlieb, who died in 1999, according to a filing in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court. Gottlieb’s late sister’s husband, Irving Bender, eventually became the beneficiary of the trust, and ­allegedly blew $3.5 million meant for the […]

With the fate of the bill against the estate tax yet to be determined by the Senate and President, let’s reflect on the top ten reasons the death tax deserves to die. Many people wonder why the estate tax would be repealed and why there is so much controversy surrounding the matter. With the U.S. […]

What has been missing for so long is a means of transferring real estate in a simple, probate-free process. In about half the states, that hole has been plugged. Probate can be messy, time-consuming and costly. Consequently, many people want to avoid it for their own estates. Unfortunately, probate is unavoidable if you own real […]

For the first time since the Apollo missions, there is serious talk of more manned spaceflight missions, and it is raising an important question: When someone dies in space, what do you do with the body? As in life on Earth, the unknown can happen in space at any time. Right now if an astronaut […]

Nursing home expenses continue to rise with the nationwide average increasing to $91,250 per year for private and just over $80,000 for semi private rooms. How much should you be saving for future nursing home care? Unfortunately, the cost is going up and people are grappling with how to pay for it. As reported recently […]

For the first time in a decade, Congress has decided to seriously examine the burden the death tax — also known as the estate tax — places on grieving families and their small businesses and employees. Present law states that if a business owner passes away his or her heirs possibly only have to pay […]

The dictionary defines beneficiary as “the recipient of funds” — from a will, trust, retirement plan or life insurance. But that doesn’t begin to cover the details and the differences. Here are five things you need to know. The term “beneficiary” involves receiving assets from a wide variety of legal instruments, and many people get […]