“The estate tax is going to be repealed!”

Those were the words I heard from several people today as I sat down for lunch with some friends.

“We’re all going to be rich!” they said.

Unfortunately, as always, I had to be the one to bring them back down to Earth…

And, as often is the case, something that looks and sounds really good when you first hear it isn’t as good as you thought it was once you get into the details.

If you haven’t been paying attention (and it’s definitely okay if you haven’t), Congress recently published their proposed changes to the tax code.

There are a bunch of proposed changes, most of them bad (I’ll explain why in a later newsletter), except for one, which sounds really good on its face.

“We’re going to repeal the estate tax!”

And it would be a really good thing, if that was the only estate tax we had to worry about.

Unfortunately, Washington State has its own estate tax. It starts at $2.129MM per person, and it’s not going away any time soon (though there are some ways around it – if you want to learn more click here and let’s talk).

That means that even if they did repeal the federal estate tax (which starts at $5.48MM for individuals and $10.98MM for married couples), you’d only be shaving about 20% off of your tax bill (you’d still owe 20% to Washington State).

As always, knowledge is power, so I wanted to drop a little on you as you head out for the weekend.

Now you have some knowledge to impress your friends!

Hope you had a great week and are heading into a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Christopher Small
CMS Law Firm LLC

P.S. It wouldn’t be a good message if I didn’t suggest you set up a time to talk with me about estate planning if you haven’t already. So, if you haven’t already talked to me about estate planning and want to, click here to schedule a time for us to talk. Cheers.

P.P.S. Are you a client and want to chat? I’d love to talk to you! Click here to set up a time that works for both of us.