Taking the Sting Out of Death Taxes with Dylan Metzner, Jones & Keller
Bill on Bankruptcy: Fee Agreement Puts Law Firm In Trustee's Sights
Signed into law on July 4, 2025, the OBBBA permanently extends many provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act while introducing new rules for charitable giving and increasing estate and gift tax thresholds starting...more
In the months preceding the general election in 2024, the owners of many closely held businesses who had not yet given much thought to the disposition of their future estates, including their businesses, decided they should...more
On February 13, 2025, Republican lawmakers in Congress introduced the Death Tax Repeal Act, which aims to permanently eliminate the federal estate tax. Since 2015, various legislative efforts to repeal the estate, gift, and...more
At the end of 2025, the federal estate and gift tax exemption will dramatically decrease unless Congress affirmatively passes a law saying otherwise. This event is the “sunsetting” of a 2018 federal tax law and is leading...more
As we start the new year, this Federal Tax Update highlights estate planning-related federal tax information that may be helpful as you consider planning options for 2024. ...more
When it comes to passing wealth to the next generation, one of the most powerful tools in our toolbox is the use of your lifetime gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax (GST) exemption amounts. While the...more
From time to time, we provide updates in the estate planning area. While the November 2022 federal elections resulted in a divided Congress that dampens the likelihood of major federal tax legislation, we thought this would...more
You have probably heard that the House Ways and Means Committee released proposals for increasing gift and estate taxes in order support legislation being advanced by the Democratic majority in Congress. ...more
This week, the House Ways and Means Committee released draft tax legislation. The legislative draft includes several provisions especially relevant to high-net-worth families and estate planning, including reducing the wealth...more
With Democratic control of the White House and Congress, there has been much speculation on what President Biden’s tax proposal will look like, as well as the likelihood that President Biden’s tax plan will be enacted into...more
On April 28, 2021, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and a Fact Sheet published by the White House, President Biden introduced the “American Families Plan,” the President’s plan for spending and a series of tax...more
The Estate Planning Team at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP issues advisories regularly to communicate important law changes and other matters of interest to our clients, their advisors, and our friends. The 2020 presidential...more
The estate planning environment has been highly favorable, with transfer tax exemptions currently at historic highs and interest rates near all-time lows. However, the temporary nature of the increased exemptions and the...more
On January 5, 2021, Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in their Senate runoff elections, giving the Democrats 50 seats in the Senate. Vice President Kamala...more
The election is only weeks away, and with it is likely to come significant changes to the tax code. Many economists anticipate that, regardless of the outcome, there will likely be tax increases to reduce the federal deficit,...more
- Annual inflation-indexing continues to increase the historically high lifetime exemption amount for gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer taxes. Those of considerable wealth who have not yet made gifts, such as...more
Many people are aware of the federal gift tax and the federal estate tax (sometimes referred to as the ‘death tax’). These are the transfer taxes which are imposed on transfers during life, by gift, or at death. In 2019, a...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which took effect on January 1, 2018, temporarily doubled the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemptions from $5 million (adjusted annually for inflation) to $10 million...more
For most family business owners, the old way of discount planning has become perishable. For many years, closely-held business owners routinely heard estate planners advise them to give or sometimes sell family members’...more
Federal Transfer Taxes - The Internal Revenue Service has announced the annual inflation adjustments for the 2019 tax year... Federal unified gift and estate tax exclusion increasing to $11,400,000: As of January 1,...more
• The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate ushered H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act), through conference committee, and President Donald Trump signed the Act into law on Dec. 22, 2017. • Most of the Act's...more
President Trump promised and will pursue tax reform, but Congress must agree to any proposal. For the most part, a majority vote in both houses would allow tax reform for about a decade, and at least sixty Senate votes would...more
The Consumer Price Index was released by the Labor Department in August 2017. Not everyone anxiously awaits the release of these numbers but the experts have now made estimates of how they will impact estate, gift, and...more
I. INTRODUCTION - This outline is a selective and evolving review of the history of the modern federal estate tax. It originated during the attempts to repeal the estate tax in President Clinton’s second term and...more
Blank Rome’s annual estate and tax planning newsletter addresses estate planning concepts and techniques that should be considered in 2017 by our clients and friends. Transfer Taxes. The major changes made in 2010 in the...more