The GOP tax overhaul doubles the estate tax exemption from $5.49 million per individual to about $11 million. Bear in mind how your state will treat any money you leave behind. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have an estate tax: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon,

Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, talks with President Donald Trump during a meeting on tax policy with Republican lawmakers in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, Nov. 02, 2017. Under the bill, the

Financial advisers and accountants are working overtime as many U.S. taxpayers scramble to pay the rest of their 2017 taxes before Jan. 1 when the proposed Republican tax overhaul would sharply cut the amount they can deduct on federal tax bills. The tax legislation, which top U.S. Republicans said on Sunday they expected Congress to

Baby, it’s cold outside. And that likely means your heating bill is on fire. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting double-digit percentage increases in average heating oil and propane prices this year thanks to higher crude oil prices, colder winter temperatures and lower fuel inventories compared with last year. For those who aren’t careful,

Recent changes could alter how much you receive from Social Security next year — and now is the time to see how you may be affected. The Social Security Administration unveiled its annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for 2018 in October. The 2 percent increase for next year marks a significant jump over last year,

Under the bill, the standard deduction would nearly double for all taxpayers before returning to current law in 2026. That means starting next year, an individual would need their total deductions to exceed $12,000, the tax bill’s new standard deduction for individual taxpayers, up from the current $6,350. Married couples filing jointly would need deductions

Authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton aim to help you get more satisfaction from your money with their book, “Happy Money.” The book highlights how following your intuition when it comes to spending is wrong, and why we often get more satisfaction from inexpensive pleasures. “The book is for anyone with even a bit of

The final version of the GOP tax plan is here, and this is what your new bracket will be. Republican legislators haggled over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act up to the last minute on Friday, garnering support that very day from holdouts Senators Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Though the proposed legislation

The news that the rule will not be included in the tax bill is encouraging for investors, said Joe Ziemer, vice president of policy at Betterment, a provider of automated investing services. “It would only add a lot of complexity,” Ziemer said. If the rule were first-in-first-out per account, it could have led investors to

The news that the rule is not included in the tax bill is encouraging for investors, said Joe Ziemer, vice president of policy at Betterment, a provider of automated investing services. “It would only add a lot of complexity,” Ziemer said. If the rule were first-in-first-out per account, it could have led investors to create

Investors can make gifts of their bitcoin to a donor-advised fund, collect a charitable giving deduction for their 2017 taxes, and then make grants when they are ready. This way, donors can also avoid the capital gains bite they’d incur if they sold their bitcoin. Generally, the deduction for charitable contributions is limited to 50

Jeffrey Zucker, co-founder of Green Lion Partners, a cannabis strategy firm, said the fact that most dispensaries are only able to accept cash poses dangers for buyers and sellers. He said he knows of a family that owns a dispensary and was recently robbed, losing all their cash for the day. “It’s an unnecessary risk,”

Advice from a financial advisor and accountant can be key in helping you figure out whether to take the lump sum or the annuity, if it makes sense to quit your job and how much you’ll have left after taxes for saving and spending. (That last line item is notably absent from how winners in

But it’s unlikely the CFPB will take an active role in regulating lawsuit lenders under acting director Mick Mulvaney, or under a future permanent director appointed by President Donald Trump, said Nora Freeman Engstrom, professor of law at Stanford Law School. “At least in the near term, if there’s going to be protection for consumers

For investments held less than a year, gains are considered short term and taxed as ordinary income. Depending on your bracket for 2017, that could range from a tax rate of 10 percent to 39.6 percent. Any bitcoin you sold or spent after owning it for more than one year is taxed as a long-term

The bankruptcy: After a falling out, the manager for Lauper’s early-1980s band, Blue Angel, sued the singer and her bandmates for $80,000 — forcing the then-struggling artist to file for bankruptcy in 1981. The comeback: Two years later, Lauper released the album “She’s So Unusual” featuring hits “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time

If you’re spending time with family for the holidays, now might be a good time to talk to them about long-term care. Those are the findings from a Nationwide Retirement Institute survey of 1,214 adults over age 50. Just over half of those polled said they were worried about becoming a burden to their family

The economy, the Fed and inflation all have some influence over long-term fixed mortgage rates, which generally are pegged to yields on U.S. Treasury notes, so there’s already been a creep up from record-low levels well before the Fed made any official move. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now about 4.08 percent — up

If you have other children, you need to think about how your decision to help one child will affect the rest of the family, said Mitchell Kraus, financial advisor and owner at Capital Intelligence Associates in Santa Monica, California. Kraus said he has seen how financial help that is provided to one child can create

But there’s a “tremendous” long-term tax benefit for lottery winners, with tax reform provisions that would eliminate the estate tax or make it easier to avoid, Kurland said. Both the House and the Senate versions would double the amount a wealthy individual can transfer in death tax-free, to about $11 million. The House goes a