BDBF News and Legal Updates

Our estate attorneys frequently receive calls from clients who want to organize their parent’s estate. As they acknowledge their parent’s aging, they want to understand how they can strategize in advance to ease its administration in the future. Unfortunately, our estate attorneys also frequently encounter clients who are confronting the death of a parent. These clients...

Regular readers of our e-newsletter know that, following a tempestuous fall, the federal estate tax seems to be settled for the time being. The IRS recently announced updates to the annual “exclusions” for estate tax and gifting for 2022. The estate tax exclusion is the amount that can pass tax-free to a non-spouse upon your...

For readers of the monthly Bulman Dunie e-newsletter over the last several months, you may have experienced whiplash. In the spring, we offered our first prediction as to possible changes to estate tax laws.  We predicted no change to the federal estate tax exemption, but perhaps a change to cost basis rules. Last month, we...

Major changes to the federal estate tax exemption are likely looming, perhaps as soon as January 1, 2022. The “estate tax exemption” refers to the amount of wealth you can pass upon your death tax-free.  Assets above the exemption amount are subject to estate tax.  The federal estate tax is one of the highest tax...

We have previously written about health care powers of attorney and financial powers of attorney. For a health care power of attorney (an advance directive), a health care surrogate’s authority does not vest until medical providers are satisfied that the principal (the person nominating the surrogate) can no longer meaningfully communicate or make decisions. Unlike a...

Nearly all Americans participate in retirement savings and/or have a policy of life insurance. In addition, many Bulman Dunie clients hold brokerage accounts. Retirement savings plans, insurance policies, and brokerage accounts have one common element. When you open the account or take out the policy, you are asked to complete a beneficiary designation form. Do...

You’ve finally stopped kicking the proverbial can down the road.  You’re ready to cross that item off your “to-do” list that you and your spouse have talked about ever since your kids were born.  You’re about to consult with an estate planning attorney. At Bulman Dunie, we commonly tell our estate planning clients that the...