More and more, Americans are choosing to travel overseas. Sometimes, when they travel for business or pleasure, it just whets their appetite. While there aren’t many reliable figures, in 1999 the State Department estimated that between 3 and 6 million Americans are living abroad. In 2016, they estimated 9 million Americans living abroad. Here’s an Esquire article which provides further information on the American diaspora. According to Wikipedia, the most popular countries for American … [Read more...] about Planning for the Client Moving Overseas
International
Planning for the International Client
Today’s world is increasingly mobile. It’s increasingly common for estate planning attorneys to have clients who weren’t born in the United States or who own property outside of the United States. How do we meet the needs of these clients? The threshold question is the citizenship of the individual. Is the client a citizen of the United States (whether or not they are also a citizen of another country)? If they are a U.S. citizen, they are subject to estate tax on their worldwide assets, … [Read more...] about Planning for the International Client
Basics of Estate Planning: What to Know Before Funding Real Estate to a Trust (Part 4 of 4)
This is another in a series of blogs on the basics of estate planning. Over the past three weeks, I’ve discussed a myriad of issues about which you need to know before making the decision to transfer real estate to a trust. I’ve looked at tax, insurance, and asset protection issues. I’ve explored concerns unique to irrevocable trusts and those unique to revocable trusts. With the abundance of issues to consider when funding real property into a trust, I thought I’d devote one final blog post … [Read more...] about Basics of Estate Planning: What to Know Before Funding Real Estate to a Trust (Part 4 of 4)
Planning for International Clients: Part 2 Foreign Assets
Planning for international clients takes special care. This blog focuses on how to handle assets outside the United States. In last week’s blog I examined how citizenship and residence are important in determining U.S. estate taxation. As American lawyers, our focus is American law, as it should be. However, when a client has assets overseas, the laws of the other jurisdiction(s) come into play. For example, if a client owns realty in Canada, the transfer to a U.S. trust may trigger income tax … [Read more...] about Planning for International Clients: Part 2 Foreign Assets
Planning for International Clients: Part 1 Estate Taxation
Planning for international clients takes special care. This blog focuses on the estate taxation of the people involved based on their citizenship. In next week’s blog I will examine foreign assets. A person who is a citizen of the United States gets an exclusion of $5.25 million this year ($5.34 million in 2014). The same exclusion applies to someone who is not a U.S. citizen, but is a U.S. resident. In both cases, the person’s worldwide assets are subject to estate taxation. So, even their … [Read more...] about Planning for International Clients: Part 1 Estate Taxation
