couple running a bookshop

Building a successful business takes hard work, careful planning and significant foresight. When a business has been able to maintain its success for a significant period of time, owners and/or executives must begin the task of succession planning. Family owned and operated businesses face particular challenges in this area. Building a family business is hard […]

Happy old couple

“So don’t give away your money. There are other things you can do ahead of time. Talk to an elder law attorney to make sure you are maximizing your dollars, that you can still give your kids some kind of inheritance and still go into a skilled nursing home on Medicaid.” A recent article in […]

extended family

“An irrevocable trust is a trust generally created during someone’s lifetime that is exactly what it says — it can’t be revoked.” Tom Benson and his grandchildren are in a fight over the ownership of the New Orleans Saints NFL football team and the New Orleans Pelicans NBA basketball team after his death. The family […]

human miniature standing over piled coins

State Rep. Shawn Dooley is proposing a cut in the state estate tax as a way of keeping older residents and their assets in Massachusetts. Many non-professionals plan for the federal estate tax, but fail to account for the estate tax in their own states. This often leaves an unintended and unnecessary bill that must […]

Finger Pressing Button on Calculator

The president proposes to tax capital gains at death rather than allow them to pass income-tax free to heirs as under current law. Did you catch President Obama’s State of the Union address last week? Make note of these interesting estate planning developments. President Obama rode into office, in part, by promising to increase taxes […]

last will and testament

Thomas Gilbert Jr. is accused of murdering his own father, a wealthy New York hedge fund founder who was fatally shot earlier this month. Could Gilbert inherit some of the fortune of the man he is accused of killing? Under the terms of his father’s estate plan, Thomas Gilbert Jr. is set to inherit a […]

brown dog

A Queens woman loves her pet Maltese so much that she rewrote her will to leave the pooch a million-dollar fortune consisting of jewelry, a trust fund and vacation home. All a dog needs is a chew toy and a million dollar doghouse, right? So it is with Bell Mia, millionaire Maltese. It is often a good […]

question mark

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 […]

human miniature standing over piled coins

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 […]

paper bills and coins

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 […]