Gifts During Life Can Support Good Estate Tax Planning

It almost seems counter-intuitive, but giving gifts can be a positive contribution to many estate plans. In Florida as well as elsewhere, estate tax planning and other objectives can be served by gift-giving. This is first of all a tool that can be appropriately used to transfer assets out of a person’s estate while he or she is living. That will generally serve the purpose of lessening federal estate taxes, along with possible state inheritance taxes and administrative fees at death.

This works even better when the asset is expected to increase considerably over a period of years that…