Almost everyone has heard that the Social Security Administration announced an 8.7% increase in Social Security benefits for 2023. While it’s true that the cost of living adjustment will benefit more than 65 million Social Security beneficiaries, what has been seriously under-reported is the change in the Social Security “wage base.” In 2022, the wage…
New 2023 Estate, Gift and GST Exemption Amounts
The IRS has issued Rev.Proc 2022-38. The purpose is to set forth inflation-adjusted items for 2023 for various IRS Code provisions. Of particular interest to people involved in the estate planning field are (1) the new unified credit against estate tax (which affects the gift and GST exemptions as well); (2) the change in the…
RMD Regs Effective Date Postponed
The IRS has issued Notice 2022-53. It addresses the proposed regulations regarding required minimum distributions. The Notice covers more than one issue, but in this email, the main point is that when those proposed regulations were released earlier this year, one of the major issues that arose was the “as least as rapidly” rule. The…
Estimated 2023 Estate, Gift and GST Exemptions and Exclusions
Thomson-Reuters Checkpoint has been tracking inflation figures. Now that the Consumer Price Index has been published for August 2022, they have estimated what inflation will do to the exemptions and exclusions for estate, gift and GST tax. The IRS has not officially issued these figures, but generally speaking, these estimates are fairly accurate. The estate…
Inflation Reduction Act – NO Estate Tax Changes
I have been asked if there appear to be any changes in federal transfer taxes, whether gift taxes, estate taxes or generation-skipping transfer taxes.The direct answer is “no” but, indirectly, with the additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service, it’s likely that enforcement including audits of estate and gift tax returns will increase. Bloomberg…
New Texas Rule Against Perpetuities
The Texas Legislature has passed HB 654, which is a Bill that does only one thing – it amends Section 112.036 of the Texas Trust Code (a part of the Texas Property Code). It’s on to the Governor, presumably for his signature. Section 112.036 sets out the maximum time that a trust, other than a…
Delay In IRS Tax Filings
Some of you have seen a recent announcement about delays in the IRS deadline to May 17, 2021. On February 24, 2021, I reported on a delay for tax filings for all Texas residents. You may be asking which applies to you. This email is to give you some clarity you won’t get on television,…
Supplement to Texas Disaster – Limited Delay in IRS Filings
The IRS issued a press release IR-2021-43 declaring that victims of this month’s winter storms in Texas will have until June 15, 2021 to file various individual and business tax returns and make tax payments. The IRS has ALSO issued IR-2021-02 which says (I have added emphasis to one part below): “Victims of winter storms…
Texas Disaster – Limited Delay in IRS Filings
The IRS issued a press release IR-2021-43 declaring that victims of this month’s winter storms in Texas will have until June 15, 2021 to file various individual and business tax returns and make tax payments. The IRS announcement says “The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on February 11….
Texas Homestead Creditor Protection and Trusts
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the In re Cyr case out of the Bankruptcy Court in San Antonio. That court held that a home inside a trust was not protected from creditors under the Property Code because the trust did not allow the debtor to live in the home “at no cost.” Instead the…