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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The recent case of Mahan v. Charles W. Chan Insurance Agency, Inc. highlights the intricacies and reach of California’s elder abuse law. The facts of Mahan are representative of many financial elder abuse cases. As part of their estate plan, Fred and Martha Mahan in the 1990s created a revocable trust, the “Children’s Trust,” to hold their life insurance policies, with their daughter Maureen as trustee. The Mahans funded the […]
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Gift and estate tax issues can be especially complex in the case of an individual whose domicile or property spans multiple countries. Each country has its own gift and estate tax laws, and when a decedent resides in one country while owning property in another, the estate may be subject to both higher and duplicative taxes. A huge potential variable is the existence of an estate and gift tax treaty […]
Read MoreOne year after Prince’s death on April 21, 2016, the fate of his estate remains up in the air, and according to a recent article in the New York Times, the six likely heirs to the pop icon’s vast fortune are fighting. At issue are legal fees and the question how much discretion the estate’s administrator should have in managing the estate. But the disputes — as well as a […]
Read MoreFriends and clients have lately been asking me: Will President Donald J. Trump repeal the federal estate tax like he promised on the campaign trail? What happens if he does? How will any possible change affect individuals like me? Your questions may sound similar, and you should hear what I’ve been telling people. First, the details of Trump’s plan are still murky. Second, it is politically uncertain whether Congress would […]
Read MoreWhen somebody dies with an estate plan and a last will in place, the deceased person’s assets usually pass to the heirs smoothly and swiftly. But every once in a while things go awry, and the courts get involved. So it happened with a case that the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles filed in November, Estate of Dayan. The case hinged on a no-contest clause in the […]
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IRS Proposed Rules Will Substantially Increase Estate and Gift Taxes On August 2, 2016 the IRS announced proposed rule changes that may have important consequences for assets that are owned by families. If the rules are finalized in their current proposed form, they will likely go into effect in December 2016. As is explained in more detail below, it is imperative that families that are contemplating transferring assets to family […]
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