Transcript:

My name is Al Newton and I’m a partner with Watson Spence LLP.  And today I’m going to talk about the areas of law that I practice and also some other things that the firm can do, but with a special emphasis on the tax laws that are current in 2012 and possibly expiring in 2013.  My practice consists of three main areas.  First, in the corporate business area I form business entities for mom and pop business to medium-size businesses.  I help businesses with transactions, acquisitions, mergers with other entities, and these generally include corporations, partnerships, and LLCs.  

The second area that I practice in is estate planning and that deals with preparing wills and trusts for individuals, and also things like powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and other more sophisticated things.  The final area that I practice in is probate and estate administration which involves once the client has passed away helping their family with probating the will and transferring assets and administrating the estate.

The special thing that I’m going to talk about today is a unique opportunity which may or may not go away in 2013 which deals with estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax.  Traditionally, during most of the years that I’ve practiced, the estate tax exemption or the amount that you can leave down to the next generation without paying any estate taxes has varied from around a million to two and a half to three million dollars.  But in 2012—actually, in 2011, a new law was passed allowing you to pass down up to five million dollars either during your lifetime or through your will, which was a huge jump from what individuals were previously able to give to children.

Now this may not be something that everybody is interested in because it’s not—very few of my clients have five million dollars to give away and live comfortably the rest of their lives.  But if you are in that category this is a unique opportunity to get a lot of money and value out of your estate, and possibly less in your estate taxes when you do pass away.  Additionally, the estate tax rate has gone down from 55 percent to 35 percent, so if you give more than five million dollars you’re going to be paying only a 35 percent rate as compared to a 55 percent rate historically.  So this is something that unless Congress affirmatively re-enacts in 2013 is going to go away, possibly permanently.  

If anybody is interested in pursuing this issue or exploring whether I could help them take advantage of this tax law, they can call me, Al Newton, at Watson Spence at 229-317-2452 or call your own estate planning attorney.