What’s New?

Legal Update – CORI Law

On August 6, 2010, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law long-promised amendments to the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information law, commonly referred to as the CORI law.  The amendments are generally effective as of February 6, 2012.  However, the amendments relating to written employment applications become effective on November 4, 2010.  These changes will have important ramifications for employers that use criminal offender record information to learn about criminal charges, arrests and incarceration of current and prospective employees. Initial Written

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Back to School Time

It’s that time of year where students head back to school.  If you’re like me and your oldest is heading off to college, you might want to take some time to familiarize yourself with FERPA.  FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99).  It is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.  The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of

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Estate Planning – Estate Tax Marital Deduction

First, an explanation about why this letter discusses the estate tax marital deduction at all. Technically, the estate tax marital deduction is no longer available for 2010 because there is no estate tax, period, currently on the books for 2010. Consensus, however, is that this interim 2010 period with no estate tax will be repealed by Congress retroactively, to January 1, 2010. In its place, the estate tax will be revived and the estate tax marital deduction once again becomes

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How Should You Own Your Life Insurance? Is An ILIT Right For You?

Besides protecting your family from financial hardship, life insurance also can be an estate-planning tool to transfer large sums to your loved ones free of estate tax and at little or no gift tax cost. This can be done using a life insurance trust. Life insurance trusts can have significant current and future use in a wide variety of individual circumstances. Life insurance proceeds are subject to estate tax if the insured owned the policy at death, or transferred it

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Roth Conversions

Prior to 2010, the income limits on both kinds of IRAs have prevented higher income taxpayers like you from making deductible contributions to traditional IRAs, or a contribution to a Roth IRA. Although you could make nondeductible contributions to a traditional IRA, the tax benefits were limited (i.e., no current deduction, the tax on the IRA income is deferred rather than eliminated, and minimum distributions are required). However, for tax years beginning after December 31, 2009, a conversion from a

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