We’ve all heard horror stories about families that fall apart after the death of a parent. Siblings stop talking with each other or even end up suing each other. A son or a daughter cuts a parent out of his or her life. Obviously, the reasons for such breakups vary. But in my experience, the primary reason is that the death of a parent almost always raises difficult and emotional […]
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Estate Planning Lawyer Kevin J. Moore named as one of 2023 Southern California’s Super Lawyers We are excited to announce that Kevin J. Moore has been named one of Southern California’s 2023 Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters for the second year in a row! With over 30 years of experience in estate planning and estate tax planning for high-net-worth individuals and business owners, estate planning lawyer Kevin J. Moore has truly earned this honor […]
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This past year, Ontario, Canada drastically changed its succession laws in relation to how separations and marriages affect the validity of wills and the rights of surviving spouses. Now, under the laws of Ontario, separated spouses will not inherit under their former partner’s will or from a former partner’s intestate estate provided the couple was separated on or after January 1, 2022. Furthermore, marriages on or after January 1, 2022 […]
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When someone passes away, we have a sense of whom we expect to inherit the bulk of their property and other assets. When those expectations do not come to pass, the law sometimes intervenes and overturns the expressed desire of the person who passed away, as reflected in their will, codicil, trust, and related documents. The idea that specific provisions of a will or trust should not be carried out […]
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California’s recently passed Prop 19, is increasing residential property taxes. Please register for Kevin J. Moore’s Zoom webinar here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nHIl8caRQHCAFZx0pb9PfQ to learn more about this and what you can do to properly prepare. The Zoom webinar will be conducted on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 from 2:00pm-3:00pm PST.
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Have you realized how much of your valuable personal information is online, pictures especially? We have ancestor history, banking accounts and details, travel logs, blog posts, and photos all available digitally. All of that digital information needs protection and if you don’t take action you might lose that information because your loved ones cannot access it. If you don’t securely save and share your passwords, when you pass away your […]
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Last week Kevin J. Moore attended the NYU 78th Institute on Federal Taxation in San Francisco. This conference covered the most advanced tax issues, offering participants a clear understanding of the key issues affecting their clients or business and presenting planning ideas that can immediately be used in practice. The Institute also provided the perfect setting to meet practitioners from all around the country. The range of attendees included: attorneys, […]
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When someone has changed a will or trust just a few years before they pass away, this can lead to an accusation that someone has used a position of confidence or authority in order to take unfair advantage. Undue influence is the legal term used to describe this situation. Undue influence often arises with a husband and wife who have been married for several decades, built a family, own a […]
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Kevin J. Moore recently spoke to Provisors Pasadena II group about the ABC’s of living trusts. He discussed the estate tax law changes that became effective in 2011 and how that necessitated changes in the structure of living trusts post-2011. Living trusts are now structured in new ways. Under pre-2011 estate tax law, you may have created a B Trust, or an A,B,C, Trust, now there is more of a […]
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The Supreme Court ruled in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust that a state does not have the authority to tax a trust’s undistributed income solely because the beneficiary resides in that state. This case potentially had far reaching implications if the unanimous decision was ruled in favor of North Carolina. States often seek new avenues of revenue through taxation but The Kimberley Rice […]
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Last Saturday, Kevin J. Moore spoke at the Chinese American CPA Association 2019 Professional Expo. This organization offers professional services such as taxation, accounting, law, wealth management, and insurance to Chinese American members. Kevin J. Moore, Pasadena Magazine’s 2019 Top Estate Planning Attorney, was invited to give a presentation on recurring estate and gift tax issues for non-resident Chinese investors who invest in U.S. real estate. There are 16 countries […]
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Kevin J. Moore was named 2019 Top Attorney in Pasadena Magazine. The Pasadena Magazine 2019 Top Attorney’s List is based on an online peer review survey sent out to practicing attorneys in the Pasadena area. To be recognized by peers as the leading estate planning attorney in Pasadena is a tremendous honor. Pick up a copy of the March 2019 issue today!
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In September of 2018, the California Legislature enacted the Uniform Trust Decanting Act. Decanting is defined as the ability of someone to distribute property from an irrevocable trust (“the first trust”) to one or more second trusts or to modify the terms of the first trust without the consent of the beneficiaries of the first trust or approval of the court. California’s new decanting statute is highly technical, replete with […]
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Today Kevin J. Moore, invited by Clare Ceplecha and Stephen Miyabe, gave a presentation on California’s new Decanting Statute to Wells Fargo’s Wealth Management & Fiduciary Services team.
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Estate and tax planning — it’s a subject many people like to avoid. That’s often because they think that estate planning is about two topics they’d rather not focus on: death and taxes. For some people, estate and tax planning is about something even more ominous: death, taxes and math. There is, however, another way to look at estate and tax planning. Beyond the details it’s about doing something that […]
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Paralegal Zye Acuna discovered her passion for justice at a young age. Somewhere between eight years playing flute in the school band and two years on the drumline in her hometown of Chino Hills, Zye connected with an innate sense of fairness and a deep respect for doing the right thing. A career in the legal field seemed a natural fit for her. With a degree in political science and […]
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Creating a living trust is one of the most effective ways to set up the smooth transfer of assets from one generation to another, avoid the time and cost of the probate administration process, and eliminate or reduce certain tax burdens. Setting up a living trust, however, doesn’t avoid the process of trust administration. What is Trust Administration? But what exactly is trust administration? Broadly speaking, it’s the process by which the […]
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Many of my clients have accumulated substantial assets in an IRA. It is commonly, along with their real estate holdings, one of the largest assets they have in their estate. There are, however, certain issues that arise when the owner of the IRA passes away. Most notably, the assets in an IRA do not pass through a living trust. They pass to the beneficiaries pursuant to the terms of the […]
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As a property owner or investor, you know the drill: the tax assessor establishes the value of any property you own at the time of purchase and you are responsible for the taxes based on that assessment. Your property tax rate may go up annually – but not by more than 2% a year thanks to Proposition 13. But what happens when you pass your property on as part of […]
Read MoreOn the campaign trail, President Trump promised to repeal the estate tax aka death tax. That plan failed. But the new tax law, effective since the beginning of the year, significantly reduces the number of estates that will need to pay the tax. It doubles the exemption limit for the estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes set for 2017. Portability remains in effect, as does the marginal estate tax rate of 40 […]
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