The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that inherited individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are not exempt assets for bankruptcy purposes, and thus can be used to satisfy the claims of bankruptcy creditors. In Clark v. Rameker, the debtor had inherited an IRA…
Read MoreA recent Tax Court case, Estate of Olsen v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo 2014-58, demonstrates the importance of proper trust funding after the first spouse’s death. In Olsen, a married couple established two revocable trust agreements during their lives as their…
Read MoreThe Washington State Court of Appeals, Division 1, recently clarified the time limit for a creditor of an estate to file a lawsuit against a personal representative who has rejected the creditor’s claim. In re Estate of Stover, involved an…
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari of In re Clark, 714 F.3d 559 (7th Circuit 2013), and thus will apparently resolve a split among federal Circuit Courts of Appeals regarding whether a debtor’s inherited IRA is exempt from bankruptcy.…
Read MoreThe IRS recently published Rev. Proc. 2013-35, which announces the annual inflation adjustments for certain federal tax provisions for 2014. Among many other adjustments, the federal estate, gift and generation-skipping federal transfer tax exemption was increased from $5.25 million to…
Read MoreA recent Washington State Court of Appeals (Division I) case holds that the time during which the creditor of a probate estate can bring a claim begins to run from the mailing of the Notice to Creditors, even if the…
Read MoreEarlier this year, the Washington state legislature made changes to the Washington state estate tax designed to limit the impact of the Bracken decision. The legislature made other changes to the state estate tax, which have been discussed in a…
Read MoreThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued guidance clarifying the federal tax implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Windsor decision. Windsor held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between one man and…
Read MoreIn United States v. Windsor (June 26, 2013), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.…
Read MoreAs part of the recent second special legislative session, the Washington state legislature made several changes to the Washington state estate tax, effective for persons dying after January 1, 2014. Other changes were designed to limit the impact of the…
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