Estate planning, gift tax rules, and everything that happens when wealth passes from one generation (or person) to the next.
Taxpayer asks: I’ve been trying to get my parents to make a Will. I’m now there only living child. My parents have told me everything goes to me. They have been told by a friend that if they make a Will & leave me everything including there house that when they die I will have…
Taxpayer asks: My father wants to sell me his house (approx. value of $300,000) for what he owes on it ($54,000). I know, a pretty sweet deal. Some friends advised him that the best way to do this is simply to “give” me the house, and I will send him a Christmas card with $54,000…
Taxpayer asks: My father my grandmother and (unofficially) I, are administers of a simple (non trust) estate for my recently deceased Uncle. the estate has hired an attorney, a funeral home, a grave tending service, and a guy to help clean the house he lived alone in, and sell personal property contained in the house….
Taxpayer asks: I recently inherited a substantial (for me) amount of money. I used it to buy a home and to pay off some bills. I have been told I will have to pay inheritance tax and I have also been told it would not be inheritance tax, but income tax I will owe on…
Taxpayer asks: Hi TaxGirl. I’ve searched all over the Internet and the IRS.gov website and I can’t find an answer to my question, so I’m hoping you can answer it: My sisters don’t currently have healthcare insurance, so my mom is helping them with some of their healthcare bills and expenses. My understanding is that…
If you had asked me, before today, what the single most important issue would be in the upcoming presidential election, I would have said the economy, hands down. For purposes of the election, it’s more important to voters than Iraq, than health care, than the environment (though clearly those issues are intertwined with the economy)….
Taxpayer asks: This year, I will have been married for 25 years. To celebrate, I bought my wife a very nice piece of jewelry; I have never purchased anything this expensive for my wife before (if you do not count our house and cars). My friend has advised that I will need to pay gift…
There’s Trouble in New York. And he’s rich. Trouble, the beloved Maltese belonging to Leona Helmsley, is the beneficiary of a $12 million trust fund, according to her will, which was made public Tuesday in surrogate court. Helmsley’s brother, Alvin Rosenthal, was named Trouble’s caretaker. Helmsley’s only child, Jay Panzirer, died at the age of…
Taxpayer asks: My son’s grandmother has offered to pay his tuition for graduate school this year. Can she get a tax deduction for this? Does my school have to report this as income? Taxgirl asks: First of all, as someone with a slew of student loans for graduate school, tell your son that he’s very…
But not many… in the Ways and Means Committee. The Business Journal of Phoenix (how’s that for a source?) is reporting that U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell, a Democrat of Arizona, is introducing a bill to keep federal capital-gains taxes permanently at 15 percent and to make recent cuts to federal estate taxes permanent. The Democratic…