One of my special interests has always been estate planning and the associated tax consequences (if you follow the blog, you may recall that I clerked at the IRS in the estates division). What you may not realize is that you don’t have to be rich to be subject to taxes at death – there are significant income and inheritance taxes that may affect you even if the federal estate tax isn’t applicable.
Of course, 2010 is a particularly wacky year for estate planning because of the uncertainty surrounding the federal estate tax. Does that mean that you should lay low and ignore it? Of course not. Randy Spiro, an estate planner in California, fills us in via his podcast.
Thanks, Randy, for passing the information along!
I had to work really hard to understand all of this, had multiple conversations with tax attorneys and other CPAs before I understood it all (or most). This is a nice comprehensive explanation. I would be shocked at this point if estate tax law is changed for 2010 (at least retro) but just incase I hope most people are not gifting over the 1 million exemption at 35% until they know for sure!