brooklyn estate planning

Company Claims to Sell Social Security Numbers

Published on: December 21, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Maintaining your Social Security number is something we have all been told to keep close, and to be wary of releasing to companies unless absolutely needed. Your Social Security number are a series of numbers that help identify individuals in the United States as either citizens, permanent residents, or temporary workers, for tax reporting purposes. If closely held, this series of numbers provides an easy way for you to identify yourself for various reasons including obtaining bills, loans, applying for jobs, and when attempting to contact any government agency.

While the internet has provided us with a vast amount of knowledge, it has also provided hackers with a way of obtaining our personal data once entered into a database, for credit card processing, or many of the other reasons we use personal information. A website is recently under scrutiny when they began selling Social Security Numbers for $250 dollars each. The website guarantees that as long as the seeker of the Social Security Number has the correct name, last known address, and date of birth of the person they are looking for, they will provide the correct Social Security Number.

The way in which Peopleinfofind.com, the website behind this scheme is able to claim what they are doing is legal is by stating they they provide this information in order to help debt collectors or those who have forgotten their Social recover it or locate an individual. However, the Better Business Bureau has caught on and is now investigating their website. While it is legal for employers to verify an employee’s Social Security Number with the Social Security Administration, attempting to find someone’s Social Security Number through a reverse lookup should be seriously questioned.

The Insolvent New York Estate

Published on: October 19, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

The legal entity that owns and controls a person’s property after they die is known as an estate. The person who leaves behind an estate is called the decedent. It is customary for the decedent to appoint someone to administer the estate and act as the executor of the estate in his or her last will and testament.

The executor of the estate fulfills many roles and responsibilities for the estate throughout the probate process. One of the most important duties that an executor performs is to pay off any final expenses that the decedent incurred as well as to pay off any debts and claims against the estate. New York Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act dictates what debts and expenses should be paid out of a decedent’s estate first. However, sometimes it is not possible for an estate to satisfy all of its debts and obligations.

The Insolvent Estate

What You Need To Know About Multinational Estate Planning

Published on: October 5, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

One of the more unique present day aspects of estate planning comes from the very mobile and connected nature that many people who need estate planning have. Many people will not just move across countries for their jobs but across borders. Globalization has brought the world closer together but added another layer of complexity for when it comes to protecting and planning for assets. A citizen of the United States needs to know what law governs taxation and their estate for their income, assets and holdings both in the United States and abroad.

Taxation Is Everywhere

Despite what many may believe, U.S. citizens and resident aliens are subject to U.S. income and estate tax on their worldwide assets. It does not matter what country those assets might be in, the income and assets must be reported. In fact, U.S. Citizens working overseas and foreign citizens considered residents of the United States must file reports with the IRS if the total value of their foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the year. U.S. citizens who are officers or directors in a foreign corporation who own more than 10 percent of the foreign corporation must also report ownership.

Life Insurance and Business Succession Planning

Published on: August 28, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Few people think about what will happen to their business after they die and therefore rarely put together a plan. Fewer may even think that a family or closely held business should be considered a part of their estate plan. However, for many small business owners, their financial interest in their business may be the largest asset that they have and represent most of the wealth that they will transfer at the time of their death. When transferring a family or closely held business, a well-funded life insurance policy can play a very large role in a smooth transition.

Providing For Your Children

There are a number of contingencies that a business owner has to consider when transferring their interest in their family or closely held business. While family businesses may be a truly family affair, with children working, operating and managing the business as well as the parents, it is a fact of life that not all of the children may be interested or suited to taking ownership of the business. In some cases, there might not be any children that wish to take over.

The Rapidly Disappearing Inheritance

Published on: August 15, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Beneficiaries Often Treat An Inheritance As A Windfall And Spend It As Such

You spend your entire life working hard, accumulating wealth and you want to pass it onto your children, to provide for them and their families after you have passed. But will they appreciate your life’s earnings or will they blow through it without a second thought? Unfortunately, more likely than not any inheritance that you leave behind will most likely be spent much faster than it was earned, and the statistics are alarming.

“From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” the old saying goes and the research shows that the sentiment is true. One third of people who received an inheritance had negative savings within two years. Even if the wealth does last past the first generation to receive it, 70 percent of inheritances are completely gone by the end of the second generation.

Disinheriting Your Spouse? Not So Under New York Law

Published on: July 18, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

You are always told that you can leave whatever assets you want in your will to whomever you want. After all it is your last will and testament. Your will represents your final wishes and they are to be carried out to the letter. You may be shocked to learn that in some cases under New York law that your will can actually be disregarded almost in its entirety, and that special case comes into play if you do not leave anything to your spouse.

Sacred Institution, Sacred Inheritance Rights

Marriage holds a special place in society and the laws of New York not only reflect that distinctive position but also protects the institution of marriage. Under New York’s Estate Powers and Trusts law section 5-1.1, a surviving spouse has the right to collect assets from a deceased spouse’s estate if the deceased spouse’s will either does not provide for the surviving spouse or does not give enough to the surviving spouse. It does not matter if the will has bequeathed those assets to someone else; the surviving spouse’s rights to the property trumps all others.

Revoking Your New York Will

Published on: July 14, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

People are taught to hang onto important documents. Every person is instructed to hold onto deeds, mortgages, bank records and tax returns in a safe place where no one else can access them lest important information fall into the wrong hands. But wills, which might be the most important document a person can have, should not be held onto after a new one has been executed, and while it may be a good idea to keep it in a safe place, hiding it like the other documents may have unintended consequences.

Written Revocation

There are many ways to revoke an old will and it is always a good idea to do so if you have drafted a new one. The easiest and most common way to revoke a will is to draft a new one and have an explicit clause that revokes any previous wills and codicils that you have executed. Because your new will is dated later than the previous wills, the revocation will be effective.

NEW YORK’S INTESTACY LAWS

Published on: May 9, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

As was outlined in the most recent blog posting, if you compare the costs and benefits of creating a will now versus passing away intestate, there is no doubt that the benefit is huge and the cost is small. It is thus high time to explore New York’s intestacy laws in detail. It is important to note that intestacy laws are important not only because they instruct a probate Judge on how the estate must be divided but it also tells the probate Court what is not permitted as well as what is neither required nor prohibited; in other words the parties can agree to certain final dispositions. The specific statute that defines intestacy and the outlines the specific requirements that a Court must adhere to is found at New York Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL) Section 4-1.1.

Family Law and intestacy laws are one of the few areas of the law that recognizes and codifies a different treatment of the sexes, insofar EPTL Section 4-1.2 requires that a child conceived outside of marriage (so called and grossly titled “illegitimate” children) must have an acknowledgement of paternity by their father or a finding by a Court that the children in issue are indeed the children of the deceased man before those children can inherit as a child of the deceased. Not so with mothers, since, except in the case of children mistakenly switched following birth, there is no doubt that children are the issue of their mother.

The technical legal term when a person passes intestate is that their estate is administered and a person who passes with a will, called testate, has their will probated. Within the universe of individuals who are material to the probate Court are children, spouses and siblings. Adopted children at treated the same as biological children although unadopted stepchildren are not considered children as far as the intestacy law is concerned. New York has adoption proceedings and recognizes adult adoptions to legally redefine this relationship. Divorced spouses are immaterial, although separated spouse are still considered spouses as far as the law is concerned.

HOW TO ASSURE AN ESTATE BATTLE

Published on: April 11, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

HUGUETTE CLARK AS EXEMPLAR

The last member of the gilded age passed away just a few years ago. Huguette Clark’s life, in some ways, seems to mirror the classic Orson Welles classic

One of the first things that she did to insure an estate battle was to pass the entirety of her estate via a will. While the larger family itself may have created various trusts for family members to pass on the overwhelming wealth, Ms. Clark herself chose to pass her wealth via a will. While it is alleged that Ms. Clark’s attorney and accountant had something to do with these limited and financially irresponsible decisions, Ms. Clark did not create a trust to ensure the passage of her large and very valuable art collection to charity, which included a painting by Monet, valued at at least $25 million as well as a Picasso worth over $31 million.

THE GRAT – GRANTOR RETAINED ANNUITY TRUST – NOT JUST A TOOL FOR THE UBER WEALTHY

Published on: February 26, 2016 | by Ettinger Law Firm

Grantor retained annuity trust (GRATs) are tremendous tools not just for the ultra wealthy, such as Mark Zuckerberg and the other founders of facebook, it is an estate planning technique that allows for a trust grantor to avoid paying gift taxes on the assets that they place into the trust with the intention that they will pass that asset on to the next generation. They are ideal for any asset that will likely quickly appreciate in value and that will also pay a dividend. Most people automatically think of stocks, which makes sense, but it could also include real estate, patents, trademarks or other intellectual property or even a valuable piece of art or perhaps even valuable machinery or some other object that can be rented.

HOW IT WORKS

To create a GRAT, a person places their property into the trust and pays tax on the property at that time, with the lower value. The trust is structured such that during the life of the trust the grantor received an annuity payment from the corpus of the trust. If the grantor is alive at the end of the trust term, the beneficiary receives the property tax free. The grantor sets the term for a number of years for the GRAT to exist in advance. Basis is a tricky and can be a very beneficial advantage to use of the GRAT because the GRAT allows the grantor to substitute two different assets of the same value but different basis amounts at any time. Since the grantor paid from an annuity during the life of the trust, the grantor still enjoys largely the same benefits.