Preservation | Family Wealth Protection & Planning

How many times have you prepared your income tax returns for the previous year, only wishing you knew then what you know now, so you could go back and make more advantageous tax decisions? In most cases, you are stuck with the decisions you made before the new tax year began, even though you may not have all the relevant tax information available to assist with those decisions until several months into the new tax year. Too bad for you, says the IRS, unless you are an estate or trust.

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) for February 2020. AFRs are published monthly and represent the minimum interest rates that should be charged for family loans to avoid tax complications.

Here are the rates for February 2020:

The Internal Revenue Service recently published its annual inflation-adjusted figures for 2020 for estate and trust income tax brackets, as well as the exemption amounts for estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer (GST) taxes. These figures are adjusted annually for cost-of-living increases.

Below is a summary of the 2020 figures. The original news release from the IRS may be found here.

Each year, Greensfelder hosts a fall Estate Planning Symposium that addresses recent developments in estate planning. At the 2019 symposium, Trusts & Estates attorney Keith Herman presented on recent developments in asset protection.

As a follow-up to Keith’s presentation, we are pleased to present a three-part blog series that touches upon the lessons learned from several recent case law developments that impact asset protection planning. The topics include the importance of timing when protecting assets from creditors, when to name an irrevocable trust as beneficiary of an IRA or other retirement account, and why using trusts for divorce protection may not be enough.

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) for December 2019. AFRs are published monthly and represent the minimum interest rates that should be charged for family loans to avoid tax complications.

Here are the rates for December 2019:

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) for November 2019. AFRs are published monthly and represent the minimum interest rates that should be charged for family loans to avoid tax complications.

Here are the rates for November 2019:

With the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in December 2017, the nearly doubling of the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption (currently $11.4 million in 2019) shifted the focus for many from estate tax planning to income tax planning. A wide range of income tax planning techniques can now be used under the TCJA, and it is important to explore these income tax planning techniques as a part of the estate planning process.

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) for September 2019. AFRs are published monthly and represent the minimum interest rates that should be charged for family loans to avoid tax complications.

Here are the rates for September 2019:

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) for August 2019. AFRs are published monthly and represent the minimum interest rates that should be charged for family loans to avoid tax complications.

On June 21, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided in favor of a taxpayer trust, finding that the state of North Carolina could not tax the trust merely because a trust beneficiary, who received no trust income or right to demand income, resided in North Carolina.