Are you sure about the illegality of selling a million dollar
property [or any other] for $1? My mother had me become a co-owner of
her property [worth far less than $1 million] some years before she
died. She lived there, paid all costs and expenses, but when she died
there was no problem, no taxes, I was already part owner of the house
and became full owner. I know, as far as Medicare goes, it is illegal
to hand over or sell for a nominal fee your house to a family member,
within a certain number of years prior to you filing for Medicare.
That keeps people from gaming the system. Not that I think the system
is all that great. I don't understand why it would be illegal to sell
your farm, whatever the value, to your son or granddaughter for a
token fee and they become owners. Or have them legally become co-owners.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Jan 6, 2007, at 6:29 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Original Message -----
> From: "Anne Pemberton" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 12:26 PM
> Subject: Re: Carter's Grove to be sold
>
>
>> Two financial tools are useful in preparing for the inheritance
>> tax. The one
>> most suggested is to purchase a life insurance policy designed to
>> pay the
>> inheritance taxes upon death.
>
> Such a policy would be very expensive....the premiums for an
> elderly landowner almost prohibitive if, indeed, he could even
> obtain a policy. Remember, these are people who are not "rich".
> They do not usually have tons of cash sitting around with which to
> go buy expensive insurance policies. Their wealth is in their land
> which no one in the family wants to sell. Most of them just want to
> do what they've always done: be left alone to farm.
>
> The other, perhaps a little fraught with
>> potential mischief, is for the pre-dying elder owner to pass title
>> to the
>> next generation before death.
>  My mother-in-law did this, selling her home to
>> her daughter for $1 in exchange of a home to live in until her
>> death, and
>> there was then no estate to pay taxes on (also the value was below
>> that of
>> the inheritance tax). Financial planning and responsibility in
>> life can
>> offset the effects of the inheritance tax.
> You provided your own response when you said that the value of the
> house was below the inheritance tax rate. If the property is below
> the minimum amount to be estate taxed then there was never an
> estate tax problem. It is totally illegal to sell for one dollar or
> give away real estate that is valued at more than one million
> dollars to an heir or anyone else.
> The secret to successfully dealing with the estate tax is, voila!
> Repeal it.
> Or, at the very least, fix it so that a farmer isn't taxed at the
> exact same rate as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and other
> billionaires who tend to think that the death tax is
> justifiable......to which I say, I guess they do! Their heirs could
> pay 99% of the Gates or Buffett estate and STILL be billionaires.
> The estate tax is one of the most onerous, most unfair, most
> egregious examples of the government's attempts to redistibute wealth.
> If anyone ever gets to studying the way it has been handled it
> would blow your mind!
> For example, under current law the death tax is being incrementally
> reduced until the year 2010 when it disappears entirely for, what?
> Twelve months. At the end of which (precisely 12:01 A.M., January
> 1, 2011) the entire thing comes roaring back full tilt to the level
> that is was  before these "reforms".....which is why cynics call
> 2010 the "Throw Momma From The Train Year".
>
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