The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made many changes in tax law and below I discuss three major estate planning implications.
The headline item is that the estate tax exemption is now $22.4 million for married couples and $11.2 million for single people. This means that the federal estate tax will be paid by even fewer Nebraskans. (But note that the Nebraska state inheritance tax is still the law. )
Many couples planned for a bypass trust when the taxable estate amounts were much lower. That made sense at the time. But with the new higher estate tax exemptions maybe the plan should be revisited. When the second spouse in a bypass trust plan ...
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The Facts from the Editors of BloombergView
"By 2050, the U.S. will have almost 90 million people aged 65 and over, and more than half will need long-term care at some point. Yet only a sliver of that group can afford the premiums insurers require. As of 2015, private insurance covered less than 10 percent of the U.S. spending on long-term care -- and the private market has been shrinking."
"Medicare covers only a short period of care after a person has been hospitalized. That leaves Medicaid, the state-administered program for the poor. But it kicks in only after people have burned through their assets -- precisely the outcome that insurance is meant to avoid. The paperwork ...
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New 2018 Tax Law
With the new 2018 tax law, the federal estate tax is increasingly irrelevant. Individuals get a $11.2 million lifetime exemption and married couples get to exclude $22.4 million. As you can probably imagine, this won't leave too many families paying the estate tax.
But just because your estate isn't taxable under federal law that doesn't mean you don't need estate planning. The cost of probate is the most tangible concern of every Nebraska resident who owns real estate and that isn't changed by the new federal law. ...
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