These are hectic days for trusts and estates lawyers, as they make house calls, work nights and fly overseas to meet rich clients before Bush era tax cuts expire.
To say were busy is the understatement of the year, said Martin Kalb, chairman of the global tax group at Greenberg Traurig LLP. Ive been practicing for 35 years, and Ive never seen it like this.
Unless Congress and President Barack Obama decide otherwise, top rates for estate and gift taxes will rise to 55 percent from 35 percent on Jan. 1, with lifetime exemptions falling to $1 million per person from $5.12 million.
For bequests to non-spouses, an estate valued at less than $5 million wont be taxed if the owner dies this year. Next year, the amount greater than $1 million will be taxed, as things stand now; money and property in any amount left to a surviving spouse isnt taxed.
Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have been meeting regularly in an effort to reach a compromise on taxes.
The president has repeatedly vowed he will insist on raising rates on the wealthy. As a result, many are scrambling to make gifts, either outright or through trusts, to spouses, children, grandchildren and others before the year ends.
On Jan. 1 the coach will turn into a pumpkin, said Gideon Rothschild of New Yorks Moses & Singer LLP
Many people with more than $10 million of net worth had a wait-and-see attitude before the Nov. 6 election, because they thought Mitt Romney was likely to become president, said Dennis Belcher, a partner at McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia.
Squeezing Work
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