Gift Tax Planning in 2017

Gift Tax Planning in 2017.

What can you do to minimize the estate tax before 2018 comes around, even though we don’t know what we are going to get from the Trump tax plan.
Hello, my name is John Pankauski, I’m an estate lawyer with Pankauski Hauser in downtown West Palm Beach. There has been a lot of talk about the tax bill that the house passed recently in November of 2017, as well as the Trump tax bill which has a proposal to eliminate the estate tax. The truth is that nobody knows what the Senate version or the joint resolution is going to look like for this new tax bill and we don’t even know if it is going to get passed. So what can you do now for estate tax planning or even income tax planning before 2018 comes along. Well the dirty secret is a tax planning expert are advising the same things they always have. Make lifetime gifts of the annual exclusion amount to people that you love or want to receive that money, you can pay educational and medical expenses for your beneficiaries and you can also try to accelerate or take expenses or pay expenses in this taxable year so you can deduct them currently off your 2017 income tax return rather than waiting for 2018.

My name is John Pankauski and I wish you good luck as this year ends in planning your estate.