By Michael Ettinger, Esq. In our experience, a majority of New Yorkers are unaware (blissfully?) that New York State levies an estate tax. New York’s estate tax starts on estates over one million dollars. What is your estate for tax purposes? All of your real and personal property, your bank…
By Michael Ettinger, Attorney at Law . Historically, estate planning consisted of setting up a will and leaving everything to one’s children in equal shares, “per stirpes”. The “per stirpes” is latin for “by the roots”, meaning that if any of the children predecease their parents then their share goes…
by Michael Ettinger, Esq. Same sex couples face unique estate planning issues since, in many jurisdictions, their unions are not legally protected. New York, for example, does not permit same sex marriages although the state does recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere (i.e., Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa and D.C.). Living…
by Michael Ettinger, Esq. It’s an estate planning epidemic. So many successful parents we meet have children who are poor or worse at handling money, have not achieved significant success in life where they have garnered enough experience in handling money or they simply refuse to grow up. What’s a…
by Michael Ettinger, Esq. With people living much longer than in the past, the frequency of remarriage is increasing, even in later years. This latter phenomenon is raising a host of elder law estate planning issues. On the other hand, we are also seeing with increasing frequency the blended family…
by Michael Ettinger, Esq. There have been numerous articles written on the wisdom of converting your IRA, or a portion of it, to a Roth IRA. In 2010, the income limit on converting, previously $100,000 per year, has been eliminated allowing many more taxpayers this option. Traditional IRA’s offer a…
by Michael Ettinger, Esq. The political struggle between the two major parties over the Federal estate tax, or “death tax” as its opponents prefer to call it, continued with the expiration of the estate tax on January 1, 2010 for one year. On January 1, 2011, the estate tax is…