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Ohio Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law
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Since January 2006, A law blog (BLAWG) for professionals and the general public in Ohio regarding estate planning, trust and probate law.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'income tax'
U.S. Continues to Uncover the Methods Used by Wealthy Tax-Evaders
In our last post, we addressed that the IRS was receiving an overwhelming number of disclosures from wealthy taxpayers, regarding income earned, but not reported, on offshore accounts. The U.S. continues to aggressively pursue the people who use thes...
IRS Offering Clemency for Taxpayers Secreting Offshore Accounts
U.S. Taxpayers are required to declare on an annual basis income earned from foreign financial accounts by the filing of IRS Form TD F 90-22.1. For years, offshore accounts in certain countries have made it possible for these taxpayers to park money...
Stepped-Up Basis to be Replaced by Carry-Over Basis
When you purchase an asset, the purchase price becomes your tax basis for that property. If you later sell that asset, your tax basis is used to determine your capital gain or loss for tax purposes. If you receive property by gift, you take the don...
Fiduciary Duties – The Missing Income Tax Return
You are now acting as the executor of an estate and your attorney informs you that you are responsible for seeing that all tax returns are timely filed. At your attorney’s suggestion, you look for a past income tax return among the piles of papers...
A Charitable Alternative to Cashing in Your Life Insurance
In our prior post, we addressed the possibility of a life settlement as an alternative to taking the cash surrender value of an unneeded life insurance policy. Another alternative is gifting the policy to a charity and taking an income tax charitab...
Quotes of the Month
“We need to simplify a monstrous tax code that is far too complicated for most Americans to understand, but just complicated enough for the insiders who know how to game the system.” – President Barack Obama’s comments in Washington on April ...
Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts
What if you paid a significant amount of money to buy something and it was defective? In one instance, you would be getting exactly what you bargained for. The intentionally defective grantor trust, sometimes referred to as a grantor defective tr...
The Silver Lining of Stock Losses
We have covered some of the opportunities that a depressed economy can provide some people. What about that bank stock that you own? One possibility is selling an asset for a loss to help offset capital gains tax in the present and future. Whil...
Income Tax Season is Upon Us
There are a number of sites on the Internet that help people with basic tax terminology; however, some of the best information comes from the taxing authorities. The IRS website provides tax forms, online filing instructions, and has a “Frequentl...
529 College Savings Plans Not Without Risk
While you do not get a federal income tax deduction for contributions to a 529 college savings plan, you do benefit from the tax-free growth of the account. The key factor is that your account must grow to realize that benefit. As you probably kn...
More Quotes
“In these hard economic times, we need to make sure tax and regulatory policy encourages growth in philanthropy,” said Steve Gunderson, chief executive of the Council on Foundations, quoted in a New York Times article, Limiting Deductions on Char...
Obama Tax Proposals a Mixed Bag
A recent Forbes.com article provides a breakdown of President Obama’s tax proposals. One element may be devastating for charities. The proposal would cap the value of deductions for things like charitable donations, mortgage interest and investm...
Quotable
“He’s being so generous at the lower-income level that making $200,000 is going to be like falling off a cliff. Say what you want about the Bush tax cuts favoring the rich, but this is just becoming punitive.” - Dustin Stamper, an analyst at ...
An Extension of Time for the Charitably Inclined
As a result of our failing economy, in October of 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, often referred to as the bailout of the U.S. financial system, was enacted. The Act does contain at least one benefit for the charitably incline...
