Knowledge Base
Inheritance law, gifting strategies, and the tax-efficient approaches to transferring wealth — from annual exclusions to generation-skipping trusts.
48 articles in this category — page 2 of 4
Gifting property to children is one of the most consequential wealth transfer decisions you will make, and the tax math is rarely what people expect. The annual gift tax exclusion sits at $18,000 per recipient in 2024, per IRS Publication 950, but a single real estate transfer almost always blows pa
Inheritance from grandparents at the $5M+ level is not a simple wealth transfer. It is a multi-decade tax planning problem with a closing window. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act exemption sunsets on December 31, 2025, the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax runs at a flat 40%, and the SECURE Act elimin
A renunciation of inheritance form is the mechanism that executes a legal disclaimer, but the tax consequences hinge entirely on whether that disclaimer qualifies under IRC Section 2518. Get it right and the IRS treats the assets as if you never received them. Get it wrong and you've made a taxable
Receiving an inheritance from another country triggers a set of obligations most US beneficiaries don't see coming. The inheritance itself is generally not subject to US income tax. The reporting requirements, foreign tax exposure, and compliance deadlines, however, can cost you more than the estate
Family greed and inheritance disputes are not random acts of dysfunction. They follow predictable patterns, strike at predictable moments, and cause predictable damage. The Williams Group's research found that 70% of wealth transfers fail by the second generation and 90% by the third, but only 3% of
Gifting land is one of the most consequential moves in high-net-worth estate planning, and it is frequently done wrong. The decision turns on a handful of variables: your current estate size relative to the exemption, the property's embedded gain, your heirs' likely holding period, and a hard deadli
Louisiana is the only U.S. state governed by civil law rather than common law, and that distinction carries real financial consequences for inheritance and community property in Louisiana. A $10 million estate here can have $5 million of its distribution locked in by statute. Community property asse
Foreign inheritance tax in California is less straightforward than most people assume. California imposes no inheritance tax, and the federal government imposes no inheritance tax on recipients. But that framing obscures the real exposure: federal estate tax on the decedent's estate, mandatory IRS r
Gifting RMD funds to family members is a legitimate wealth transfer strategy, but it does not reduce the income tax you owe on those distributions. The IRS taxes RMDs as ordinary income to the account owner in the year distributed, regardless of what you do with the money afterward. Understanding th
If you own French property and you're not a French resident, the EU Succession Regulation (EU 650/2012) changed the rules on August 17, 2015. Understanding exactly what it does and does not do for non-EU nationals is where most estate plans go wrong. The short version: it helps EU citizens considera
Louisiana's Napoleonic Code inheritance rules remain active law, not historical curiosity. The state's Civil Code, rooted in French civil law principles introduced in 1808, still governs how property transfers at death, how spouses own assets during marriage, and critically, which heirs you cannot l
Until recently, the answer for most defined contribution pensions was no. Pension funds held in registered UK schemes sat outside your estate for inheritance tax purposes because trustees retained discretion over who received death benefits. As HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual (IHTM17000 series) confir