I've heard twice in the past two days about an increase in deaths of rich people before December 31, 2010 to avoid estate tax when it returns in 2011.
Honestly, are people really going to off their relatives to save on estate taxes? Aren't there laws against that?
There also has been talk about Advance Health Care Directives (or health care proxies or Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care depending on your jurisdiction) that include provisions permitting the agent to take estate taxes implications into consideration in end-of-life decisions.
Good luck enforcing that provision. Or relying on it when the one relative who isn't obsessed with estate taxes questions the wisdom of the agent to pull the plug.
I think that this will join the urban myth about estate taxes taking away the family farm (there is no known case of this ever happening, and the Internal Revenue Code is full of provisions to prevent this).
No comments:
Post a Comment