Estate Planning Tips for 2009

As I wrote a few weeks ago, in 2009 an estate planning revolution will begin. Why? For several reasons:

1. After years of uncertainty about whether the federal estate tax will stay or go, President Obama has made it quite clear that the tax is going to stick around for years to come. So for those of you who have been putting off making an estate plan or updating your existing estate plan because you thought that the federal estate tax was going to disappear in 2010, think again and plan in 2009.



2. Even with #1 said, it has been projected that with a $3,500,000 federal estate tax exemption in place, less than 1% of estates will be subject to the federal estate tax. But the reality is that today estate planning is about so much more than worrying about estate taxes - it's about estate protection - protecting you and your property while you're alive and well or if you become mentally incapacitated and then protecting your loved ones and their inheritance after you die.



3. Even though the federal estate tax exemption has increased to $3,500,000, many states that collect their own separate estate tax have opted to maintain their estate tax exemptions at pre-2002 federal levels. This means that for residents of states that collect a separate state inheritance or estate tax, including CT, DC, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MN, NE, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, VT and WA, an estate will only need to be worth $1,000,000, or in some states even less, before a state tax will be assessed. Thus, for residents of states that collect a separate state inheritance or estate tax, planning to minimize the tax bill will still be important.

Stay tuned for a series of specific estate planning tips for 2009.

• Overview of Current Federal Estate Tax Laws


• Overview of Taxes that Affect an Estate


• What is the Future of the Federal Estate Tax?


• What Happens if You Don't Have a Disability Plan?


• What Happens if You Don't Have an Estate Plan?
• When Should You Update Your Estate Plan?


• Will Your Old Estate Plan Still Work Today?