by Arthur Geffen | Dec 23, 2010 | Estate Tax, Income Tax, IRS
Congress adjourned its year-end lame-duck session on Wednesday after passing legislative fixes for several pending tax issues, including the estate tax, the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, an alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch, and extensions of many...
by Arthur Geffen | Dec 20, 2010 | Estate Planning, Estate Planning Solutions, Estate Tax
OK, get ready because it will become available to married couples in 2011 and 2012, portability of the federal estate tax exemption between spouses. The biggest argument in support of portability is that it will prevent married couples from having to create...
by Arthur Geffen | Dec 16, 2010 | Estate Tax
The House Democrats are pushing to amend the estate tax deal in the compromise — which may blow up the whole deal. That sort of risk might be worth it for a major amendment to the policy, but that’s not really what the House is offering up here....
by Arthur Geffen | Dec 16, 2010 | Estate Tax
Once again, the U.S. is debating the estate tax. And once again, partisan pundits and politicians are evoking farmers and family-owned businesses as the true estate-tax victims. Everett Collection Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in the second season of the...
by Arthur Geffen | Dec 16, 2010 | Estate Tax
As Congress stands poised to gut the state tax at the behest of a Democratic president, let’s try a short quiz: We all know the estate tax is a vital instrument of redistributive taxation. But what, exactly, is it supposed to be redistributing? If you...
by Arthur Geffen | Dec 15, 2010 | Estate Tax
On paper, a mere 10 percentage points and 2,860 wealthy taxpayers separate Republicans and Democrats in the fight over taxing multimillion-dollar estates. The political differences loom larger. As the U.S. Congress moves to reinstate the estate tax next year...
