Category: Estate Planning
New Jersey Supreme Court Adopts Test for Determining When a Non-Client Can Sue an Attorney for Legal Malpractice
The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a significant ruling involving a malpractice lawsuit brought by a disgruntled family member claiming that she should have been included in her uncle’s Last Will and Testament. The Court held that a drafting attorney owes no duty of care to a non-client, unless there…
Achieving a Better Life Experience Accounts (ABLE)
Achieving a Better Life Experience (“ABLE”) accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts for individuals with disabilities. These accounts were first created nationally in 2014, and New Jersey ABLE accounts became available in 2017. Home | NJ ABLE. ABLE accounts allow eligible disabled individuals to save and invest money without jeopardizing their…
Estate Tax Planning Impacts of the OBBBA
On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the extensive tax changes referred to as “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (“OBBBA”). One of the major provisions will impact estate planning as we have known it. The OBBBA has extended the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act provisions which were set to…
NEW JERSEY SUPREME COURT TAKES A SURPRISING APPROACH TO ADDRESS A DECEDENT’S LACK OF ATTENTION TO DETAIL AFTER GETTING DIVORCED
In a recent New Jersey Supreme Court case, Matter of Estate of Jones, 25 N.J. 584 (2025), a unanimous court found that a decedent’ s ex-wife was entitled to retain United States savings bonds that the decedent owned and that designated her as the beneficiary, notwithstanding the fact that the…
IRS ISSUES CONSEQUENTIAL RULING ON TRUST MODIFICATIONS
Chief Counsel Advice (“CCA”) 202352018, an internal legal advice memo from the IRS National Office to field agents, released December 29, 2023, addressed the gift tax consequences to the beneficiaries of modifying an irrevocable trust that is a “grantor trust” under the tax code provisions of Internal Revenue Code (“I.R.C.”…
U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Decide Valuation Dispute Involving “Buy-Sell” Agreements
Shareholder “Buy-Sell” Agreements (or similar terms contained in the Operating Agreement of an LLC or Partnership Agreement) are a common key element of the business plan for owners of closely held entities. These agreements generally restrict transfer of interest outside of a close group and are often used as part…
The Use of Irrevocable Trusts in Long-Term Care Planning
The Use of Irrevocable Trusts in Long-Term Care Planning In Revenue Ruling 2023-2 the IRS has ruled that assets held in a trust that is a “grantor trust” (a trust that is treated for income tax purposes as the alter ego of the grantor to the trust because of the…
IRS proposes new “clawback” regulations
There is a computational quirk (that tax lawyers call “clawback”) in the manner in which the federal estate tax is calculated. What is “clawback” of estate tax? Because the estate tax and the gift tax are accumulated into a single “transfer” tax, a problem occurs when the lifetime exclusion from…
RMD Proposed Regulations – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The proposed regulations consist of 64 pages printed in the Federal Register and are subject to a comment period which ended on May 25, 2022. Once the IRS considers the comments it will move towards finalization and adoption after which they will become effective. The IRS has received 119 comments…
Company Owned Life Insurance and Buy-Sell Agreements
In Connelly v. U.S., USDC ED MO, Case No. 4:19-c-01410, September 21, 2021, the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri held that company-owned life insurance on the life of a deceased shareholder that was used to redeem the deceased shareholder’s shares increased the fair market value of the…