Civil Litigation Basics 6 — Final Assault – Trial Concludes
This is the sixth article in a series on the basics of the civil litigation process. If you are interested in reading the first five installments, they are available on Fletcher Tilton’s website under the Knowledge Library. Presentation of Evidence As discussed in the previous installment of this series, once a jury has been selected…
Government Benefits for Persons Who Are Disabled
The purpose of this handout is to provide you with the information about government benefits that will be helpful to you and your lawyer in planning for your child’s future. In addition to trust and estate planning skills, your lawyer needs to have an understanding of the problems of disabling conditions, the interests of the person…
The SECURE Act – How It Impacts Your Retirement Planning. What You Need To Know In a Nutshell
On December 20, 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (“SECURE Act”) into law. If you have a retirement account and/or if you anticipate being named as a beneficiary of a retirement account, here is a summary of what you need to know about the…
State Taxation of Trust Income – Supreme Court Rejects Aggressive Approach in Kaestner Decision
On June 21, the United States Supreme Court released its highly anticipated decision in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (the Kaestner decision). In its opinion, the Supreme Court confirmed that a state may not tax income earned by a trust and not distributed out to a beneficiary where the trust’s only connection…
Worried About Losing Your Home to the Costs of Long-Term Care?
When faced with the need for long-term care in a nursing home, many fear losing their home to the exorbitant costs of such care. An individual can qualify for Medicaid coverage for long-term care while owning a home in his or her own name; however, MassHealth (the State Medicaid agency) is usually entitled to receive…
Using Backdoor Roth IRAs to Boost Retirement Savings
For a variety of reasons, taxpayers looking to maximize their retirement savings should consider supplementing employer- based retirement plans with individual retirement accounts (“IRAs”), and especially Roth IRAs. For high-income taxpayers, directly contributing to a Roth IRA may not be possible, but Congress permits such accounts to be funded indirectly through a maneuver commonly called…
Residential Real Estate Values
For developers and property owners alike, making sure your property’s valuation is correctly calculated could save you thousands of dollars in property taxes. Recently, a home in my neighborhood sold for 8% above asking, which was 10% over the property’s valuation. This is not an unusual occurrence. The recent lowering of the federal interest rate…
Mitigating Risks During the Pre-Employment Process – An Employers Primer
Though employers are understandably curious about their prospective employees’ backgrounds, there are numerous federal and state laws that strictly limit which information employers can seek from job applicants, whether through job applications, interviews, and/or background/reference checks. In addition to needing a lawful basis for obtaining certain information from applicants, employers cannot make any employment-related decisions…