3-13-2002
DEAR WENDY:
Please explain a few things that will help make your situation clearer:
(1) What state is this in?
(2) How much was your mother's estate worth? What type of assets did she leave (bank accounts, CD's, stocks, jewelry, houses, land)?
(3) What were you and your sister eligible to receive from the will?
(4) Why wasn't the will probated?
(5) How old are your parents?
(6) Is your father financially able to afford to pay the back taxes now?
There is a good chance that it may not be too late to get the will probated. You would need to consult with a local probate attorney to find out the time limit for filing probate in your state (IF there is a limit). Please send me an e-mail message to the address shown below so I can pass on to you a confidential tip about your situation.
It would be to your advantage to have the will probated if you and your sister were named as beneficiaries, so you could receive the money and/or property you were entitled to receive. If you don't get it probated, it is possible that either your dad may hav received assets he wasn't entitled to or that he should have shared with you all, which would have been done if the will had been properly probated so there could be a legal official record of how the estate was divided.
If he has spent most of the money, then it wouldn't do you much good to file for probate now.
Try to find out if your father has enough money now to pay you what you are supposed to be receiving from the will.
As far as the tax situation goes, his estate will be responsible for the back taxes, but it will not necessarily be a mess. It is fairly simple for the IRS to pull up his income records from their computers, but the interest and penalties could make the tax bill a little bit larger than he expects (anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 or more). You and your sister would not be personally responsible for paying back that money from your own bank accounts, but the estate would be responsible (the IRS would most likely be first in line to claim to be paid, so this means that their debt would be deducted from the estate assets before you 2 as heirs would receive your share of the estate).
Wait and see if you will be getting anything from the will before you decide to report him about the income taxes. You should only report him if you feel he can afford to pay back the debt (if necessary, they would allow him to pay it back by making payments on it monthly until the entire amount was paid back in full). You could report him anonymously, if you wanted to. But are you prepared to risk possibly having a bad relationship with him if he decides to stop speaking to you (since surely, he is going to suspect that you or your sister turned him in, since you would be the only people who knew about the tax situation)?
SINCERELY,
advisor (
[email protected])
