Pursuant to the Indiana Code, surviving spouses have legal rights to renounce their inheritances in favor of their statutory elective shares. Based on the Uniform Probate Code, the Indiana Code contains an elective share allowance whereby one spouse cannot entirely disinherit the other in the absence of a valid nuptial or marital agreement. Thus, if you are an Indiana resident, and you are the surviving spouse without an inheritance under your deceased spouse's will, you will receive an elective … [Read more...] about The Elective Share Statue in Indiana

In case you haven’t heard, the New Year brought a new law recently signed by the President. To avoid the country from falling off the “fiscal cliff,” the “American Taxpayer Relief Act” was approved on New Year’s Day. The approval and signing of this new law may affect the future of your estate plan and your estate taxes. Regarding federal estate taxes, this new law makes almost all of the previous tax provisions, commonly known as ”TRA 2010,” permanent, with the exception of the tax rate. … [Read more...] about We Dodged the Fiscal Cliff – How the New Tax Bill Affects You

There are only a few days left before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st and the tax law changes. Or will it? As of this writing, the law to which it will change will be the pre-EGTRRA/TRA law. In other words, currently in 2012, individuals with estates under $5.12 million are not subject to federal gift or estate tax. However, if this law expires, estates larger than $1 million will become taxable at the beginning of 2013 and we will back to a $1 million applicable exclusion per … [Read more...] about The Estate Tax Ball is About to Drop!

After working as a paralegal in our offices, Amy decided that she loved working with our clients so much that she would go to law school. She recently graduated from Valparaiso University Law School and will take the Bar later this summer. Amy studied elder law while at Valparaiso and she is featured in The Indiana Lawyer article about the growing number of new lawyers going into the elder law specialty. As part of the course at Valparaiso, students received on-site experience of the needs of … [Read more...] about Amy Nowaczyk Featured in “The Indiana Lawyer”