Florida Trust & Probate Attorneys Blog

If you get a letter or an email from a company called COMPLIANCE SERVICES (not to be confused with the Florida corporation, Compliance Services, Inc.) asking for a fee of $125 for corporate minutes BEWARE. Minutes are not required to be posted with the Florida Secretary of State. Rather, they should be prepared and filed…

On December 17, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, simply known as the “2010 Tax Relief Act” (TRA 2010). TRA 2010 includes significant changes for estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer (“GST”) tax relief in 2011 and 2012, as well as estate and GST…

Good news for taxpayers! The new tax bill was signed into law today. This law will extend for two additional years the Bush-era tax rates, including the 15 percent long-term capital gains and qualified dividends rate. It will provide substantial estate tax relief: the law will reintroduce the federal estate tax with higher exemption amounts,…

It “appears” the President will agree to a future estate tax with a $5 million exemption and a 35% tax rate, although he is getting tremendous resistance from his own party. We need to wait and see how this shakes out. Regardless of your political affiliation, note that this agreed exemption and rate are only…

By Phillip B. Rarick, Miami Trust Attorney Executive Summary In addition to our sunshine, Florida has one of the best tax and asset protection climates of any state in the country. Florida has no state income tax, no fiduciary tax, no intangible tax, no estate tax, and arguably the most generous homestead laws anywhere in…

______ #1. Trust Funding. After we signed your trust, we reviewed the funding of your trust and I gave you detailed Funding Notes. Have you followed up on these instructions? Funding is simply the transfer of your assets into your trust. It is a good idea to annually review the funding of your trust. It…

Who is Impacted by this Decision: Anyone with ownership interest in a single member Florida limited liability company (LLC). Executive Summary: On June 24, 2010, the Florida Supreme court held that a single member Florida limited liability company does not protect against an outside creditor with a judgment against the sole member of the LLC.…

By Phillip B. Rarick, Miami Trust Attorney Who is Impacted by This Legislation, F.S. § 732.401? The surviving spouse of a decedent when the decedent owned homestead property which was not properly devised or cannot be devised is impacted by this legislation. However, all Florida probate attorneys need to know the implications of the legislation…