IRS Offers Estate Tax Relief To Widows And Widowers
This is a matter that moderate millionaires need to consider if they are surviving spouses of people who died after 2010, where no estate tax return was filed. You have to weigh the administrative hassle of accomplishing the filing against the chance that you might die with a net worth over the exclusion amount. Remember it is not your current net worth, but what your date of death net worth might be. Who knows maybe one of your ships might come in?
If you do think this is something you should do, jump on it now. There may well be a premium on estate tax preparation in December. If your spouse died in 2011, gathering the information to do the return might be a bit of a project.
Tax pros should think about their widow and widower clients particularly those who have substantially boosted their net worth since their spouse died.
There is more to the procedure than I have laid out here, but I think I have given you the primary action item.
How To Know Your Electronically Filed Income Tax Return Was Really Filed
Originally published on Forbes.com. I think it is a good thing that people tend to be loyal to their tax preparers. Reilly's Second Law Of Tax Practice, as modified...
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.