Income Tax

The initial reaction and, in some quarters, the continuing reaction of many practitioners is that it is not possible to have lifetime transfers made to a trust be incomplete for federal gift tax purposes and have the trust not be a grantor…

Effective January 1, 2013, a new tax, the so-called Medicare Tax on “passive” income, is imposed on individuals, estates and trusts, under new Section 1411 of the Internal Revenue Code. Especially, when coupled with the higher Federal…

A trust is a "grantor trust" for income tax purposes to the extent that under the rules articulated in subpart E (sections 671 through 679) of part 1 of subchapter J of chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, the trust's…

As the Federal and state governments impose much more onerous estate and inheritance tax laws, such as Chapter 14 of the Internal Revenue Code, it becomes more difficult, expensive and complex for property owners to arrange for the transfer…

Since the allowance of the unlimited marital deduction by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 ("ERTA"), a married person normally is able to postpone the imposition of estate tax until the death of the surviving spouse, by transferring…

The charitable remainder trust, itself a by-product of tax reform, is one of the few estate planning devices left untouched by the tax reform bills of recent years. While practitioners, particularly those who do not dwell full-time in the…

Virtually every person who has "earned income" has qualified plan benefits and these benefits may constitute a significant portion of the property owner's estate. For persons dying before 1985, the Internal Revenue Code provided an…

Since the enactment of the federal income tax laws, taxpayers have attempted to shift income to others. Because of limitations on credits and deductions, the allowance of personal exemptions and the progressive nature of the income tax,…