Attorney Jerome Wolf told members of The Jacksonville Bar Association Trust and Probate Law Section last week that they had more to think about than changes to the tax structure.
Wolf, an attorney with the law firm of Duane Morris in Boca Raton, explained Thursday that those in the tax and probate practice areas had to pay attention to more than the changes to the tax structure, considering that most provisions of the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010” are set to expire at the end of the year.
“Regardless of what the tax part of our practice involves, there are still other issues that we need to be aware of,” said Wolf.
“Traditionally, when you talk about estate planning, you’re really only talking about one creditor, the Internal Revenue Service. Isn’t all the planning we do to minimize the estate tax?”
Wolf also talked about other issues.
“How many of you have a client whose son who has turned age 16 and wants to buy him a car?” asked Wolf.
He provided a scenario in which a father buys a car for the son, the son drives to a party, has a few drinks and then has an accident with the car.
“Who is exposed? Dad is. Dad is negligent for giving his car to someone who is irresponsible,” said Wolf. “We deal with these issues all the time.”
He explained how people might protect their assets in that scenario.
“With some of our families, believe it or not, we have set up leasing companies. We’ll set up a leasing company. Purchase the car through the leasing company and the only thing that is in the leasing company is the car,” said Wolf.
Wolf’s practice areas include wealth planning, asset protection, business succession planning and estates and asset planning.
He has been board certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates by the Florida Bar since 1989.
“I can’t tell you how many lawyers that we deal with all over the state who say, ‘I’m going to call Jerry Wolf and get some input on this,’” said Steven Rosenbloom, president of SMK, a business appraisal firm.
Rosenbloom introduced Wolf at the meeting Thursday.
“Jerry is a true professional, a virtual walking tax reference bank for planning, gifting, estate tax and asset protection,” Rosenbloom said.
Wolf has presented information about trust and probate law to The Florida Bar, the Florida Institute of CPAs, the American Bankruptcy Institute and The Florida Legal Education Association.
Wolf also talked Thursday about asset protection in regard to the special tool available in Florida called the Homestead Law, which provides some restrictions for claims against the homestead.
“Let’s talk about somebody who lives in a municipality and it’s more than half acre. If I were a developer, I would usually say to my clients, ‘If you are going to build a house on more than a half-acre, put the house on one part of it and outside that half acre put the tennis courts and swimming pool,’” said Wolf.
“If you ever get sued, they’ll only take the swimming pool and tennis courts. We had a case in Miami where, in fact, the house straddled the half acre and a bulldozer did come down and knock down that portion of the house. Something you might want to think about,” he said.
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