The Estate-Tax Trap That Can Cost Millions: A Cautionary Tale
A Costly Oversight in Portability Planning Not all estate planning mistakes involve poor investments or forgotten documents, sometimes it’s simply a matter of incomplete paperwork. In one recent case, a married couple’s heirs were hit with over $1.5 million in unexpected estate taxes due to an avoidable oversight when filing for estate tax portability. Here’s how it happened. Portability: A Powerful, but Procedural, Tool Portability allows a surviving spouse to claim the unused portion of their deceased spouse’s federal estate tax exemption, known as the Deceased Spousal Unused Exclusion (DSUE), by filing IRS Form 706. This effectively doubles the couple’s ... Read More
Trump-Era Bill Would Lock in $15 Million Estate Tax Exemption — What It Means for Your Estate Plan
The President's bill proposes to raise the federal estate tax exemption to $15 million per individual ($30 million per married couple) and make that change permanent. For those concerned about the future of the estate tax, this proposal may offer a degree of long-awaited certainty. The Current Law (and the Looming Sunset) Under the current law, the federal estate tax exemption stands at $13.99 million per person for 2025. However, this elevated amount—enacted initially as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—is set to expire at the end of 2025. If no legislative action is taken, the ... Read More
