The legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. seems to be everywhere these days with the success of the film “Selma,” which begins with his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, a decidedly less heroic aspect of his legacy has been playing out here in court filings and hearings as his three surviving children […]

Area Congressman Mac Thornberry filed his first bill of the 114th Congress on its opening day. The Death Tax Repeal Act (H.R. 173) will completely and permanently repeal the Federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes. The bill already has garnered 36 cosponsors. The estate tax is making headlines again, but this time the topic points to […]

The series examines real-life stories of unconventional inheritances and will appear Mondays-Thursdays, with new episodes debuting every Monday and Tuesday, said Bill Shine, Senior Executive Vice President, FBN and FOX News Channel (FNC).  If you are curious how real people have handled bizarre inheritances, then a new television show should interest you. Fox Business News […]

A man accused of helping a woman ransack her father’s grave in search of his “real will” has pleaded guilty and prosecutors in New Hampshire say he should have to help out at a cemetery as part of his sentence. New Hampshire man Michael Day recently pleaded guilty to digging up the grave of business […]

An attorney testified Wednesday that he found no rules in the Oklahoma Veteran Department’s handbook to prevent seven workers from accepting bequests from the estate of a resident at the Norman Veterans Center. The longtime employees were fired in 2013, more than three years after veteran Bill Marshall died, leaving the workers some money in […]

Two real-life Lex Luthors took advantage of the elderly widow of the DC Comics publisher who brought Superman to news stands by convincing her to leave them large sums of cash from her $50 million estate, court papers charge. When Shirley Liebowitz, the late widow of Jack Liebowitz, passed away at the age of 96 it was […]

There have been rumors circling the internet that China will impose a long-proposed inheritance tax in 2016, dropping a bombshell on the extremely wealthy. As is often the case in countries that experience rapid economic expansion, most of the new wealth is concentrated in a small percentage of the population. And China is no exception. […]

A judge who determined that an Encinitas lawyer manipulated his relationship with a wealthy and mentally ill woman who left her fortune to him has determined the lawyer must pay $4.3 million to the woman’s trust.. The U~T San Diegohas the entire story in an article titled “Attorney ordered to pay $4.3M to trust.” Svi […]

Parents should do what they want with their money, says Kotzer, but they should also think of the consequences. “Will my children be talking after I die?” Unsatisfied siblings have been known to fight for years about their parents’ estate and never even talk to each other again. Don’t let this happen to your family. […]

Good advisors recommend their clients of all ages have powers of attorney (“POAs”) in place. But the biggest and apparently most hotly debated question is whether or not POAs should spring—meaning whether they should be effective immediately upon execution (typically the statutory default) or whether they should become effective only upon a determination that the principal […]