If you live in a Jacksonville or another city in Florida where the Chief law Enforcement Officer (CLEO) will not or easily sign a Form 4, there are several solutions.
Title II Firearms (sold by Class 3 SOT dealers) include suppressors, , short barrel rifles, machine guns, and other destructive devices.
The most common solution is to create a NFA Gun trust to hold title to the firearms.
Most Florida medical schools will accept donation of bodies (complete with organs). Florida Medical schools will use them for research and instruction.
Generally after the body is used, it will be cremated by the school. If requested most schools will return the remains if requested. Individuals and schools are not permitted to pay for a body, but they will pay for the transportation costs as well as the final disposition costs. These types of arrangements need to be made in advance but there are some institutions that will accept a donation at the death with the written permission of the next of kin.
Here is a list of Florida Medical Schools. If you live in a state with no medical school or one that has strict requirements you may also contact the national Anatomical service 24 hours a day at 1-800-727-0700.
Florida Continues to have no State Death Tax. Only 24 states have some form of death tax as the state death tax credit has been phased out.
The Top Estate Tax rate for 2008 is 45% and is scheduled to remain at $45 percent through 2009. This estate tax rate applies to assets in excess of $1.5 million.
The 2008 Estate Tax Exemption is $2 Million dollars and is set to increase to $3.5 million dollars in 2009. Many believe there will be new legislation this year which could change the numbers in the future.
Often the first thing that comes to mind with Florida Estate Planning is a Florida will or Florida living trust. Although these are valuable documents they do not have any effect on the distribution of many assets.
We recommend that our Jacksonville residents make sure their beneficiary designations are updated as these control the distribution of many assets. When a Florida Living Trust is part of an estate plan, you can designate your trust to be the beneficiary of most assets. It is important to make sure that the trust is the proper beneficiary. With some assets like retirement plans, you may not want your trust to be the beneficiary as it can have adverse consequences when charities are named as beneficiaries of the trust.
Your beneficiaries need to be updated on a regular basis and in the event of a life event (birth, death, marriage, divorce…). We recommend naming contingent beneficiaries in these documents.
Starting January 1, 2008 every non-spouse designated beneficiary will have the option to rollover an inherited IRA and stretch distributions. To take advantage of this opportunity your Florida estate plan must be setup correctly to qualify for this rollover opportunity. You are not entitled to a rollover, you must prove you meet the technical legal requirements. Let’s take a look at why your family would not qualify for the new IRA rollover opportunity.
The IRS has very specific rules for how a trust can qualify as a see through trust and treated as a designated beneficiary. The top level bullet point requirements are:
The trust must be valid under state law;
What is “fiduciary responsibility?”
An attorney-in-fact is a fiduciary and as such has a duty to invest and manage the assets of the principal as a prudent investor. This standard requires the attorney-in-fact to exercise reasonable care and caution in managing the assets of the principal. The attorney-in-fact must apply this standard to the overall investments and not to one specific asset. If an attorney-in-fact possesses special financial skills or expertise, he or she has an obligation to use those skills. The attorney-in-fact should keep careful records. Everything the attorney-in- fact does for the principal should be written down, and the attorney-in-fact should keep all receipts and copies of all correspondence, and consider logging phone calls so if the attorney-in-fact is questioned, records are available.
This is the last part on Florida Powers of Attorney Click to review the others . If you need help with a Florida Power of Attorney contact a Jacksonville Florida Estate Planning Lawyer.
When does the attorney-in-fact’s authority under a Durable Power of Attorney terminate?
The authority of the attorney-in-fact of a Durable Power of Attorney automatically ends when one of three things happens: (1) the principal dies; (2) the principal revokes the Power of Attorney, or (3) when a court determines that the principal is totally or partially incapacitated and does not specifically provide that the Power of Attorney is to remain in force. In any of these three instances, the Durable Power of Attorney is terminated. If, after having knowledge of any of these events, a person continues to act as attorney-in-fact, he or she is acting without authority. The power to make health care decisions, however, is not terminated when a court determines that the principal is totally or partially incapacitated unless the court specifically terminates this power.
What is the procedure for a principal to revoke a Power of Attorney?
What is the relationship between a Declaration of Living Will and Power of Attorney?
A declaration of living will specifies a person’s wishes as to the provision or termination of medical procedures when the person is diagnosed with a terminal condition, has an end-stage condition, or is in a persistent vegetative state. A living will and a health care surrogate designation are termed “health care advance directives” because they are made in advance of incapacity and need. If a person is unable to understand or unable to communicate with a doctor, a living will is a legally enforceable method of making sure the person’s wishes are honored. Whether or not a person has a living will, a person’s attorney-in-fact may make health care decisions if the Durable Power of Attorney specifically gives this right.
What is a Health Care Surrogate Designation and how does it differ from a Power of Attorney?
There have been many revisions to Florida’s Trust Code and I have touched on some of them on this blog in the past.
There have been major changes to creditors rights. Creditors cannot compel distributions from or attach or otherwise reach a beneficiary’s interest in a third party discretionary trust whether or not:
1) The trust has a spendthrift provision;
2) The discretion is subject to a standard; or 3) The trustee has abused the discretion.
This clarifies many issues with Florida Trusts.
RELATIONSHIP OF POWER OF ATTORNEY TO OTHER LEGAL INSTRUMENTS What is the difference between an attorney-in-fact and an executor or personal representative?
An executor, termed a “personal representative” in Florida, is the person who takes care of another’s estate after that person dies. An attorney-in-fact may only take care of the principal’s affairs while the principal is alive. A personal representative may be named in a person’s Will and is appointed by the court to administer the estate.
What is the difference between a “trustee” and an “attorney-in- fact?”
Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog