estate planning

[silverpat]

Mississippi
my husband owns a business which is a corporation with him as president,our son as vice president and me as secretary. my question is in the event of my husbands' death is the corporation part of his estate? And if so, what is the best way of dealing with it to prevent taxes?

 

[ALawyer]

The value of HIS shares, not the business as a whole, are part of his estate. There are NO estate taxes unless the estate is at least $675,000 total (assuming he did not make any gifts over $10,000 per person earlier) and to the extent he leaves shares to you there is no estate tax on HIS death but there would be on yours, so many couldbes use an A-B trust that gets the effective value up to $1.35 million.

If your business is worth a lot, a good estate planning lawyer can help DRAMATICALLY.