Recent Blog Posts
Happy Holidays 2016
I hope you’re all having a joyous and memorable holiday season filled with friends and family and fun! I value all of our clients and take pride and joy in helping our clients to plan for their families’ futures and to guide families through the administration of an estate of a loved one. As… Read More »
Guest Blog: How Financial Aid and Student Loans are Affected by Gifts and Inheritance
This guest blog post was written by Rachael Everly. Rachael is an undergraduate student who loves to write on the topics related business, finance, technology and education. Follow @RachaelEverly for further updates. Usually the last thing on a student’s mind is financial planning. All except the most strictly groomed teenagers will be concerned with… Read More »
Ernie Banks Estate, Part 10: Settlement Talks and More
This is the ninth installment in my series on various legal aspects of the Estate of Ernie Banks. You can read my first nine pieces here. I’m back! It’s been a couple months since my last blog post and over six months since my last update on the Banks Estate. Much of my free… Read More »
A Brief Introduction to Premarital Agreements
Premarital (aka prenuptial) agreements are sometimes a touchy subject (and often fodder for celebrity gossip). OK, maybe more than sometimes. I think that’s because they are often viewed as nothing more than pre-planning for divorce. But premarital agreements are often used more for estate planning purposes than anything else. Perhaps viewing a prenup as… Read More »
Trust Funding: Top 5 Overlooked Assets
The cornerstone of the vast majority of estate plans that I create for our clients is the revocable living trust. They help clients achieve a wide array of estate planning goals by providing a comprehensive set of instructions for managing, investing and distributing property for the trust’s named beneficiaries. But these instructions only control… Read More »
New IRS Form 8971: Basis Reporting for Taxable Estates
When an individual dies leaving a gross estate (plus past taxable gifts) that exceeds the federal exclusion amount in the year of death ($5.45 million in 2016), a Form 706 Federal Estate Tax Return must be filed. This has long been the law. But a new law now imposes an additional filing requirement on… Read More »
District 211 Class Announcement for March 2016
I will be teaching an adult continuing education class for District 211 covering a broad range of estate planning and estate administration topics. Topics include asset ownership, wills, trusts, probate, trust administration, estate and gift tax, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations and more. The class takes place at Palatine High School from 7pm to… Read More »
New Illinois Laws for 2016, Part 2: Guardianship & Health
Last week I introduced six new Illinois laws for 2016 related to probate, trusts and estate planning. This week I will provide short summaries of eight new Illinois laws that relate to guardianship, health care and elder law matters. In all, last year the Illinois legislature passed 237 new laws. For a summary in… Read More »
New Illinois Laws for 2016, Part 1: Probate, Trusts & Estate Planning
Happy New Year! As I did for 2015, I want to update readers on select new laws that took affect either 1/1/16 or earlier in 2015. A total of 237 new laws went into affect at the start of the year. This week I will highlight 6 noteworthy laws in the areas of probate,… Read More »
2016 Estate Tax Summary
Previously I wrote summaries of estate and gift taxes for 2013, 2014 and 2015. As with the last couple years, the changes this year are primarily inflation adjustments. For 2016, the unified federal estate, gift and GST tax exemption rises by just $20,000 — from $5.43 million in 2015 to $5.45 million in 2016…. Read More »