Estate Planning

Don't Die Today - Tomorrow There Will be No Estate Tax

By Greg Herman-Giddens

We only have a few hours left before the much reviled "death" tax disappears, to be replaced by a complicated and confusing carryover basis regime. So, if your estate is over $3.5 million, the tax impact may be less if you die tomorrow rather than today.  Don't count on certain tax savings, however, as Congress could very well reinstate the estate tax retroactively to January 1, 2010.  And if you wait until 2011 to die, your estate could be taxed even more, as the estate tax will return then, with a $1 million exemption and a 55% rate.

My advice - don't die, but see your estate attorney right away!  Failure to plan for all these changing laws could end up being very costly.

Full post as published by North Carolina Estate Planning Blog on December 31, 2009 (boomark / email).