The new tax legislation raises the federal estate tax exemption to $11.2 million for individuals and $22.4 million for couples. The increase means that an exceedingly small number of estates (only about 1,800, nationally) will have to worry about federal estate taxes in 2018, according to estimates from the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. So, you may be wondering, is
Executor’s Duties An executor, sometimes called a personal representative, is the person who is named in a will, appointed by the court, and responsible for probating the will and settling the estate. Depending on the state, an executor may work under court supervision or may use so-called “independent” administration for an unsupervised probate. Typically, a petition of probate must be filed
This quick article from the Wall Street Journal hits the three most basic estate tax concepts in a pretty concise and straight-forward way. If you have any questions about the interplay between the annual gift exemption ($14,000), the estate tax exemption (currently $5.43 million per person) or the lifetime gift exemption (it ties in with the estate tax exemption), take a
According to this Wall Street Journal article, the rise is now official. When the new estate tax laws were passed at the beginning of 2013, the law set the applicable exclusion amount (the value of assets that an individual can pass without any estate taxes) at $5,000,000. That amount was indexed for inflation based on the consumer price index back to