If you are over 65, you can choose to defer paying your property taxes on your homestead. This almost sounds too good to be true, but realize, it is a deferral of taxes, not a forgiveness of them. However, if
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Death and Property Taxes
Spring is in the air, so what is that foul odor? Could it be the stench coming from your property tax reappraisal? It is true that death and taxes are inevitable, but property taxes are particularly inescapable. Somehow, someway, somebody…
What is Step Up Basis? Why don’t I want to lose it?
I know, tax stuff is boring, unless you are having to pay taxes you shouldn’t. So, today, I’m going to address a great tax benefit of property passing through estates, and why you don’t want to lose that benefit. We…
Who Do You Trust? Difficult Decisions in Estate Planning
Regardless of whether you use Revocable Living Trusts, Wills, and Powers of Attorney to accomplish your estate planning, a key decision is who to trust to make your financial and medical decisions. The person who makes your medical decisions is…
How to Tell if Your Property is Community Property
Dual income couples often keep their finances separate. Separate bank accounts, separate investment accounts, separately titled cars, and almost anything else other than the homestead. Are these separately-titled properties separate property of the respective spouses? The hallmark rule of community…
Should I have My Attorney Draft my Gift Deed?
Would you self-diagnose your own medical problem? Sometimes as a self-help form of estate planning, family members will deed their property to their family, sometimes as a right of survivorship deed, an enhanced life estate deed (a ladybird deed), or…
Were You the Turkey Carved at Thanksgiving?
Congress has actually passed an infrastructure Act — The Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act “IIJA” and is working on a second spending bill titled the Build Back Better Act (“BBBA”), passed by the House and pending in the Senate. …
Guardianship vs. Conservatorship
Britney Spears, as almost everyone knows, had been under “conservatorship” in California. What does that mean? Do not try to make me understand California “law”, but if Britney was a Texan, we wouldn’t call it conservatorship. We would call it…
Proposed Estate Tax Law Changes
House and Senate Democrats are working with the Biden administration to pass legislation to fund their infrastructure initiatives, including wide-ranging social programs, and tax legislation to pay for those programs, at least in part. The House Ways and Means Committee…
What is Guardianship?
In Texas, guardianship is the legal process where one person is granted legal control over another person’s affairs. There are broadly two types of guardianships: guardianship of the person and guardianship of the estate. A guardianship of the person is…