New York Probate and Estate Administration Blog

At the end of 2010 congress revamped the estate tax and generation skipping tax legislation. This saw all of the different types of death related taxes being filed with the highest rate of 35%.
At the moment the exemption rates are very generous and this is thought to continue throughout 2012. However, in 2013 it’s likely that things will be changed. That’s why many New York Probate Lawyers are starting to tell their clients about the possibility of gifting now.
The portability of the gift tax exemption means that a married couple actually has double the amount of exemption. The $5 million lifetime gift tax exemption for individuals is $10 million for a married couple. In 2010 the gift exemption was only $1 million.
So many people are asking their Lawyer whether they should start giving away as many of their possessions to their children before 2013 and the exemptions are reduced. This would serve to reduce the inheritance taxes explains the New York Probate Lawyer.
These lifetime gifts will help to reduce the size of your estate which will in turn mean that less tax will need to be paid. They will also earn interest at their capital gains tax rate which could be beneficial.
If you do want to use the portability of these exemptions then you will need to file an estate tax return. This is important even if there is no tax owing. This will also serve to notify the IRS that you will transfer the gift tax exemption to the surviving spouse.
The estate tax return needs to be submitted 9 months after the death, although it may be possible to extend it by six months in some circumstances.
The savings could be very high if you start gifting assets now. However, the problem is that there’s no indication what will actually happen in 2013 in sites like Suffolk and Westchester Counties. Congress could continue with the $5 million individual exemption into 2013, nothing is sure. However, if congress reverts back to $1 million lifetime gifting limits then you would have saved a lot of money.

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A California court has decided belief in a marriage can, in fact, make it legal when a man marries another woman before his divorce is final.
A state appeals court reinstated the lawsuit of a woman over the death of a man she may or may not have been married to for four years. In the eyes of the law, he was her husband, even though he married her while still legally married to another woman.
Similar suits have been rejected consistently for more than two decades, New York City Estate Planning Lawyers have discovered. Court after court rejected the suit until finally the Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose said because the plaintiff “believed in good faith” she was, in fact, legally married, she has marital rights, which includes the right to sue another party for wrongful death.
There was a decision in 1988 that declared claiming marital rights not only had to involve a sincere belief that the marriage was valid, but be “objectively reasonable”, as well. In that case, the alimony claim of a woman was rejected because she married a man in a religious ceremony that was not recognized by California law. The husband told her the marriage was perfectly valid – then decided two years later that it was not when he decided to marry another woman.
The court then ruled the woman who had gone through the ceremony had no marital rights, because though she believed she was married, that belief was unreasonable, New York City Probate Lawyers have learned.
The more recent ruling in the current lawsuit said the 1988 decision was wrong in that it distorted a law that should protect “innocent parties of an invalid marriage.” Now the suit of a woman married in September 2003 in a church may go on, even though the man involved was still married to another woman, unknown to her.
It was three months after the wedding before the divorce became final, but the purported wife did not read the divorce papers closely. She believed herself to be legally married until the man, an ironworker, died in a workplace accident. When she sued a contractor for negligence, the suit was dismissed on the grounds that she was never married to the ironworker. This case is being studied in Long Island and Westchester County.

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