Planning for 2021

It will come as no surprise that there is an election in November, 2020. Depending on the outcome, there might be significant changes in estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes as soon as next year. Are there things that you need to consider in your planning for 2021? Yes, there are some. Mostly, though, the planning concerns are for very wealthy individuals and couples. People worth less than a few million dollars (perhaps $5 million for married couples) have little to worry about on the estate planning front next year. But for the moderately wealthy and very wealthy, it’s worth giving some consideration to the planning environment as the election draws near. What is “moderately wealthy” or “very wealthy”? We offer some generalizations in this week’s podcast episode: Planning for 2021. But wait — what does “moderately wealthy” or “very wealthy” mean? For our purposes here, we might say that the top 10% of Americans by wealth are moderately wealthy (at about $1.5 million net worth each) and the top 1% (at about $10 million each) are very wealthy. Note: our discussion focuses primarily on planning for a possible change in the estate tax. You might reasonably also want to think about income tax changes after the election season. The New York Times published an interesting article with some good tips for you to consider. You may find the article (which is probably behind their paywall) difficult to get to, but we think it’s worth the effort.