How do estate planners reduce estate taxes?
• Rearranging the ownership of property and drafting your estate planning documents to make good use of available deductions. • Changing ownership and control of life insurance policies. • Life insurance purchased and owned by someone else or by a life insurance trust. • Setting up present and future gifts, including certain transfers through permanent or irrevocable trusts. Could you explain the marital deduction? Your estate will have a deduction for property passing upon your death to your spouse. For example, the head of the largest software company in the world passes away leaving a $19 billion fortune to his/her surviving spouse, who is an American citizen. No estate taxes will be due at the time of this death because of the marital deduction available to the estate for property passing to a surviving spouse. If your spouse is an U.S. citizen: • There is no dollar limit to the deduction. • Your spouse must receive the property either outright or in a form meeting tax code require
