The importance of estate planning in our contemporary days cannot be overemphasized as almost everyone has an asset. Apart from having your wishes fulfilled when you die, it is also necessary to ensure you manage your estate taxes before time to avoid loosing everything to payment of tax owed or making the process too complicated for your beneficiaries. Hence, one important goal of estate planning is to reduce estate taxes.

Estate Taxes: Federal Estate Tax

This is a levy paid to the government for the transfer of an estate or assets when a person dies and it changes on a yearly basis. Based on the value of the date, eighteen to forty percent will be the tax rate as of last year and of course certain amount of taxes must have been owed. Both taxes, that is the one owed and the federal tax increases as the value of the estate increases.

The estate is normally appraised at the date of death and all that is owned by the decendent is subject to taxation. Meanwhile, not all assets even need to file an income tax return. To determine which estate is eligible to file for tax returns is dependent on if the total gross assets and the previous gifts subject to taxation is beyond a specific amount in a specific year. As at last year, if the total is beyond eleven million five hundred and eighty thousand, then the tax is enforced.

With an appropriate estate planning, one can decrease estate taxes by making use of planning strategies to either decrease the quantity of assets subject to tax or to decrease the worth of the asset subject to tax. Depending on how large the estate is, it may be appraised 6 months after the death of the dependent in as much as the estate will worth less at this future date.

Meanwhile, this strategy of delayed appraisal can make things difficult in an agricultural setting which involves animal farming and farming of crops. Based on this strategy, the assets are either appraised 6 months after death or on the date of sales, anyone that comes first. Any estate that was not in existence as at the time of death is not included in this strategy of appraisal.

Normally, estates are appraised based on a just market worth, an amount a buyer is willing to pay without coercion of any kind and which a seller is willing to accept without coercion likewise. A land in use for agricultural purposes is valued differently from others, its value is based on the agricultural worth.

Federal Taxes On Gifts

This affects all the donations and gifts made through out the lifetime of the dependent and the tax of the gift is dependent on a just market value of the gift. There is usually a yearly exclusion of little donations or gifts to individuals every year. As at last year, donation or gift below fifteen thousand dollars may be eligible for an exclusion, although the amount varies. You can make a number of donations in a particular year, in as much as the worth of donation given to a specific person is not more than the yearly exclusion, then you are free from gift taxes.

Fundamental Rules Of Taxation As It Relates To Trust

The twenty one – year supposed settlement of trust capital: This rule says that on the 21st yeartide of the date the trust was set up, the trust is supposed to have distributed all its capital assets and on a regular basis with every twenty one years as the interval. The tax on the trust is the tax on the remaining capital gain after all expenses on the capital assets in the trust that day.

You can reduce or totally avoid this rule by distributing capital and giving out assets from the trust to your heirs or trustees before the twenty – one year yeartide. Although, the conditions of the trust can limit the plans a beneficiary can make as it relates to this.

Other rules regarding taxation of trust include:

1. You should have and be conscious of your tax year and its end

2. If it is possible to pay your tax in instalments, do so

3. Make alternative minimum tax payment, if you are opportune to do so