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Estate Tax Reduction: A Great Day for Black FamiliesHarry C. Alford NNPA Columnist December 21, 2010 On Dec. 17, Congress passed legislation that will greatly reduce the tax burden on estates. The new law exempts the first $5 million of value that a person leaves to his/her loved ones. After that, the tax rate of 35 percent will be applied to the remainder. This is the lowest rate in 80 years and it is certainly a blessing for Black families. We are now evolving into ownership and business entrepreneurship which allows more and more Blacks to accumulate some wealth to...

Subject under discussion: the death tax. Few things tick off swine like Weiner more than the gov't not being able to heavily tax people's estates (at 100%, if they had their druthers), and the commie Weiner was true to form. When Megyn challenged him by saying the earned money has already been taxed several times, Weiner turned his head to the side and pouted, refusing to look at the camera. "It's not their money; they're DEAD," he kept repeating in as haughty a manner as possible. And "it's not the heirs' money; they didn't earn it!" I only caught about...

House Democratic leaders unhappy with the tax-cut deal President Obama struck with Republicans are signaling they will try to draw the line at a GOP-favored proposal for the estate tax. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday escalated the Democratic criticism of the agreement and said the estate-tax provision was “a bridge too far.” The comments by Pelosi and other party leaders reflected widespread anger among House Democrats at the president for caving too early, by their characterization, and essentially leaving them out of final negotiations with Republicans. While Pelosi retains the Speaker’s gavel for nearly another month, the tax-cut endgame...

Author's note: This is the first of a three part series focused on what the new Congress should set as its priorities.The tax cuts passed during the Bush Administration all had sunset clauses – they expire at the end of 2010. The changes to the estate tax were the most fascinating: the amount of exempt assets increased every year and the tax rate decreased every year, until 2010 when – poof! – the entire tax went away. Unfortunately, it’s scheduled to resume again in 2011. If there’s any tax that should not be re-imposed, it is this burdensome tax triggered...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Born on the Fourth of July, George Steinbrenner left the world stage with a great sense of timing too.

The House votes 224-199 to cancel a one-year repeal of the estate tax, set to begin next month, and instead permanently extends the current tax, with a top rate of 45 percent on estates larger than $3.5 million.

I am a real estate investor (wholesaler, for now) in the Baltimore, MD area and I was wondering if there were other RE investors out there in FRland. I wanted to open a forum thread to discuss strategies on how to invest in these harsh economic times and what to invest in. I've been a Real Estate investor for about a year and believe that we have a huge opportunity to make good money given that the housing market is so low. You know, buy low, sell high, right? However, I would like to talk to other RE investors who...

Trouble is living the good life in Florida. I would too, if I had a fortune of $5 Billion (with a “B”). He must have wonderful financial advice because the initial $12 Million (with an “M”) was left to him in a fund to benefit animals. That’s where the trouble began for Trouble. In a suit filed in New York, three animal – welfare groups have filed suit in Manhattan regarding the use of those funds. Named in the suit are The Humane Society of the United States; the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and Maddie’s...

Even as banks grapple with rising foreclosures, many lenders have something else to worry about: A rising tide of potential losses from commercial real estate loans that could reach into the billions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration proposed on Monday to raise nearly $60 billion by closing loopholes including those related to the estate tax, and also revived a bid to cap deductions wealthy individuals can claim. Funds raised from the estate tax and other changes would go to beef up a healthcare reserve fund, a $634 billion pot of money President Barack Obama wants to use to revamp the healthcare system and expand insurance to tens of millions of Americans who lack it. The proposals "take on what we believe are a series of unjustifiable loopholes, unjustifiable tax breaks that...

NEW YORK – Trustees of real estate baroness Leona Helmsley's estate say they're giving $136 million to charity — with just $1 million going to the dogs. Helmsley's estate announced 53 charitable grants Tuesday, the bulk of which went to New York City hospitals and medical research. The largest grant, $40 million, went to a digestive diseases center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, while $35 million went to start two research facilities in Helmsley's name at Mount Sinai Medical Center. The estate for Helmsley — who died in 2007 at age 87 — divided $1 million equally to 10...

There's is a lot of activity out on the coast that may indicate a reawakening of the housing market there - and across the country. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- No state has been harder hit by the housing bust than California. It has piled up more foreclosures and has endured among the worst home-price declines. The median price of a single-family home sold in February was $247,590, down 41% from 12 months earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors (CAR). And home construction in the Golden State has nearly vanished: December housing permits shrank to about a quarter of...

Do you think you've hit bottom? Oh, no. There's a bottom below. - Malvina Reynolds To begin with after the end of a house price bubble homeowners feel that they have some sort of entitlement to the previous high value of their homes. If they can't get it, they often won't accept lower offers. So, previously established highs tend to be "sticky". This is exemplified by the trend of sales shown in Berkeley, CA, multiple listing data between the late 1960's and early 1980's. Sales volume went down. Inventory went up. Prices didn't drop. There is also normally a "resistance...

Summary Under current law, the estate tax will be repealed in 2010, and then will be reinstated in 2011. This strange sequence of events will occur because the tax cuts enacted in 2001, including those related to the estate tax, expire after 2010, restoring the law that was in effect prior to 2001. The Administration has called for making the repeal of the estate tax permanent after 2010. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this would reduce revenues by $290 billion through 2015, including $72 billion in 2015 alone. But this estimate essentially captures only the cost of four...

A 50-year-old Muslim man, who allegedly made a blasphemous statement against Prophet Muhammad, was beaten to death in Kano on Saturday. The man was killed at Sheka Aci Lafiya quarters when some angry Muslim youths besieged his house and beat him to a state of coma. He died shortly after a team of police and Hisbah officials rescued him from the mob, the police said. The man died as he was being rushed to the Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital. Witnesses told Daily Trust that the man, though a Muslim, made a statement residents considered as blasphemous against the Holy Prophet...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Dennis Pflueger and his wife won a rent-free year in a nice new house in an expensive subdivision not far from the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. As part of the prize, they then have the option to buy the four-bedroom home for $452,000. Mr. Pflueger, a telephone-cable installer who describes himself as an "old redneck," is in the middle of his free year. But the Pfluegers are a bit lonely. Just one other family lives in any of the 28 new or unfinished houses on Foxboro Court. ...Since real-estate tanked, many new planned communities across the...

More News on the Tolkien vs. New Line Lawsuit July 20th, 2008 by Altaira Thanks again to Voronwe_the_Faithful for posting another update on the Tolkien vs. New Line Lawsuit on our message boards: The plaintiffs filed a First Amended Complaint last Monday (which I believe was the last day for them to do so). They have dropped the fiduciary duty cause of action (as expected), but they have asserted new allegations to support the fraud cause of action. They added more specific claims as to how they contend that New Line misrepresented the amount of expenses that it had in...

This past week, Congress had an opportunity to permanently repeal the death tax by amending the Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007 to include language that ends the estate tax forever. This would have been a good provision in an overall bad bill. 212 Democrats were enough to keep this spectre looming on the horizon if the Bush tax cuts are not renewed in 2011. The bill passed without this silver lining and now we face big in increases taxes and penalties in the next five years. The underlying attitude behind this bill, and the estate tax, is what I...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offered a sobering view Tuesday of the pressure the housing market was having across the country, saying the decline stood "as the most significant current risk to our economy." Mr. Paulson even acknowledged that problems in credit, mortgage, and housing markets were much more severe than anticipated. "The ongoing housing correction is not ending as quickly as it might have appeared late last year," he said in a speech. "And it now looks like it will continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets, and many homeowners for some time yet." Housing prices have...

Wall Street extended its retreat Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the night before that the slumping housing market remains a "significant drag" on the economy. Bernanke's comments during a speech at the New York Economic Club revived concerns that a recovery from the summer's credit crisis might take longer than expected _ a sobering thought for investors, who are sifting through mixed third-quarter earnings and watching energy costs rise. The stock market had its biggest drop in more than five weeks Monday after a consortium of banks led by Citigroup Inc., which reported a steep profit decline...