My Letter To A Senator Friend

March 29, 2011

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is a personal friend whom I have known for 35 years. My college roommate was his high school classmate in Big Sandy, the farm town on the high plains where Jon maintains his family homestead. I was an enthusiastic supporter when Jon was first elected to the Senate in 2006. His narrow victory over three-term Republican Conrad Burns was crucial in the Democrats’ sweep to a …

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What Price Love? Try $1.75 Million

December 9, 2010

Think you can’t put a price on love? President Obama and congressional Republicans got together this week and came up with $1.75 million. Granted, they were not thinking in those terms. They were thinking of the federal estate tax. Last year, the tax was 45 percent on estates greater than $3.5 million. In 2010, there is no estate tax. But in the absence of new legislation, the tax is set …

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The Unseen Battle Over Estate Taxes

December 6, 2010

While the press and the blogosphere fixate on the legislative jockeying over income tax rates, a much more lasting issue is being decided in the Capitol’s deepest recesses: Can so-called “death taxes” be laid to rest? The federal estate tax has been on hiatus in 2010, but it is due to return with a vengeance on New Year’s Day. The tussle over income taxes has given opponents of the estate …

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Organized Labor Tries To Regroup

November 3, 2010

Organized labor, even more than the Democratic Party, took a punch in the gut with yesterday’s election results. The end of the Democrats’ total dominance on Capitol Hill means labor has little chance of getting legislation passed before 2013. But with a heretofore loyal ally in the White House, unions can still accomplish many of their goals through executive and regulatory action — unless the administration pivots in another direction …

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Rooting For Gridlock And A Tax Hike

August 25, 2010

You don’t hear this very often, but I hope my taxes go up next year — and yours, too. I do not have a burning desire to send more money to Washington. I don’t have a ton of disposable cash and no better place to use it. I do not buy the patently silly argument, propounded by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others in the Obama administration, that a tax …

Bank of Mom and Dad Offers Great Rates

August 16, 2010

Banks are being criticized both for insufficient lending and for making too much profit. While some of these claims are dubious, there is one bank indisputably offering ultra-low rates with potentially high lending capacity: the Bank of Mom and Dad. Loaning money to children, whether adolescents or adults, is a valuable way to increase family wealth, provide opportunity and avoid burdensome gift and estate taxes. With interest rates and asset …

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Steinbrenner’s Timely Exit

July 14, 2010

Whether you admired George Steinbrenner or loathed him (his kind treatment of troubled souls like Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden won me over in his later years), say this for the man: He had impeccable timing. When Steinbrenner led a group of partners that bought the New York Yankees in 1973 for $10 million, the team was down on its luck and owned by a corporate parent, CBS, that had …

It’s 2010. Do You Know Where Your Lawyer Is?

January 4, 2010

In a few weeks, about 2,000 of the country’s best estate planners — most of them attorneys — will gather in Florida for an annual technical conference which, this year, is likely to be more of a pep rally. The estate tax has been dropped, at least for now, from the federal tax code. Nearly all of these lawyers want it restored ASAP. Safe amid the obscurity of the 44th …

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