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
Read More...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 Consensus, however, is that this interim 2010 period with no estate tax will be repealed by Congress retroactively, to January 1, 2010.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
Read More...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
Read More...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
Read More...A new law makes the purchase of products that combine annuities or insurance policies with long-term care insurance more attractive. As ElderLawAnswers previously reported, these “hybrid” products are gaining in popularity due to a law that went into effect January 1, 2010, making distributions from life insurance and annuities tax-free when used to pay for long-term care. The same law also allows owners of annuities or life insurance policies to exchange their old policies for long-term care insurance or hybrid
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