It is probably safe to assume that one of the factors behind the passage of Proposition 19 by California voters was the promise that doing so would give older homeowners the ability to retain their lower property tax base on a residence by transferring part of it to a newly purchased residence. Also included in...Read More

The SECURE Act of 2019 significantly changed the rules applicable to inherited Individual Retirement Accounts starting on January 1, 2020, for beneficiaries other than the surviving spouse and some limited special circumstances. For most non-spouse beneficiaries, the IRA must be distributed to the beneficiary no later than 10 years from the date of the IRA...Read More

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act increased the estate and gift tax exemption to its current level of $11.58 million for a single individual and $23.16 for a married couple. If you have not considered taking advantage of the opportunity to reduce the size of your taxable estate by gifting away assets during your lifetime,...Read More

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 became effective on January 1, 2020, but you may have heard or read about it as the SECURE Act. The federal legislation could significantly affect your retirement accounts and estate planning, so it pays to get acquainted with its provisions to determine how it...Read More

Some people with substantial wealth have been hesitant to take advantage of the increase in the estate and gift tax exemption included as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Questions about whether the Internal Revenue Service would clawback gifts to increase the size of estates once the exemptions revert to pre-TCJA levels...Read More

When it was approved by voters in 1978, Proposition 13 brought lower real property taxes for owners of residential, commercial and farm properties throughout California. It accomplished this through a rollback of property values to 1976 levels and a limit on annual increases in property taxes. A recent effort in the legislature to push forward...Read More

Taxation of irrevocable trusts has always been complicated, but in recent years the level of complication has increased due to state tax laws being passed that attempt to bring trusts within a state’s tax reach that previously would not have been subject to such tax.  Trusts generate more than $120 billion in earnings every year,...Read More

The generosity of Americans is borne out by the more than $410 billion they donate annually to charitable causes and organizations. Most of those donations, about 70 percent of them, come from individual donors. People have their individual reasons for making charitable donations, but one of them might be reducing the amount of taxes payable...Read More

The modern estate tax dates back to 1916 when it was imposed at a rate of 10{b2882cad84bd77ee25ab8b8b9d1b0566021dcc5c7d8a30d0e639a0635fa20cc0} on the portion of estates above $50,000. Over the following years, the rates and exemption amounts varied, reaching a high of 77{b2882cad84bd77ee25ab8b8b9d1b0566021dcc5c7d8a30d0e639a0635fa20cc0} with a $60,000 exemption amount from 1941 to 1976. In 2001, Congress passed the Economic Growth...Read More