Law Offices of Robert J. Ross

If, like so many, you are prone to disorder in the keeping of important documents, assuming that you keep them at all, you may be well past due for a makeover of your estate plan and your end-of-life instructions. It is not just a matter of maintaining tidiness for its own sake: a lot of money and time could be saved by making your estate plan organized and accessible and then keeping it that way.
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To help struggling taxpayers who owe back taxes, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently unveiled a series of new steps to help people get a “fresh start,” to use the phrase invoked by the IRS Commissioner, with their tax liabilities. The general idea is to recognize the challenging economic environment the country faces while also keeping the tax revenue flowing in at acceptable levels. The focus is on changes to the tax lien system and other collection tools already used by the IRS that will make paying taxes a little easier on taxpayers.

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Hazards to a golfer’s health and safety that come most readily to mind involve swinging clubs and golf balls in flight, usually on unintended flight paths. But the sport also has other dangers lurking, including the garden variety slip and fall. When James, a golfer, sued a golf resort recently over such a mishap, his claim was dismissed, essentially because the particular risk at issue in his case should have been apparent to him and, as such, it was up to him to avoid it.

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This video considers some of the reasons for hiring a lawyer and discusses some ways to evaluate lawyers that you interview.

A major health services company with thousands of employees overhauled its pension plan some years ago. As it explained to the employees at the time, their
then-existing benefits would all be converted into a hypothetical lump sum, which would constitute the opening account balance for the new plan. That amount
would then grow by a percentage of the employee’s pay each year. It all sounded as though there was nothing to which the employees could object.

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In theory, we are all in favor of saving time, labor, and space, not to mention avoiding the stress and anxiety that can come from leading complicated and
disorganized lives. In the realm of personal finance, these are all good reasons to resolve to become more simplified and organized, but saying and doing are
two different things. It may help move the process along to break the job up into some very specific things that you can do in addition to making an overall
change in attitude toward your finances. Minutes spent doing this ahead of time could save hours and many dollars later.

Direct Deposit

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For you to claim a federal income tax deduction for a charitable donation valued at $250 or more, you must obtain from the recipient of the donation a
“contemporaneous written acknowledgment” letter. Failure to obtain such a letter can result in a disallowance of the deduction by the IRS.

The acknowledgment letter, which may be in the form of a thank you letter to you as the donor, should include the following information:

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For some people, life insurance may not spring to mind immediately as an effective estate planning tool. A life insurance policy remaining in the estate of the
insured is subject to federal estate taxes. However, when carefully crafted and put in place with the guidance of an appropriate professional, there is a way both
to obtain the familiar benefits of a life insurance policy–providing a measure of financial security for the beneficiaries–and to remove the policy’s proceeds
from exposure to the estate tax. The vehicle is called an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT).

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Nate Thoma is not a lawyer, but he is a soft-spoken, yet confident, small investor in Washington Mutual, the big bank that was seized by the federal government
in 2008 and ended up in bankruptcy. As for so many other investors, Nate’s stake in the bank was wiped out. Nate became something of a folk hero during that
tumultuous period when big banking institutions were failing and the little people always seemed to get the short end of the stick as the messes were being
cleaned up.

Nate’s big moment came when, after he had spent untold hours analyzing the Washington Mutual case, the federal bankruptcy judge let him have his say–and at
some length–in a hearing that culminated in an investigation of trading by some very large hedge funds and in the rejection of a bankruptcy plan for the bank.

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