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Maryland taxes estates above $5 million. That number is fixed in the statute. It does not rise with inflation, and it does not care what your house is worth now compared to when you bought it. The federal exemption is currently around three times higher and is adjusted every year. The gap between the two is where a growing number of Bethesda households quietly sit, owing Maryland estate tax and owing the federal government nothing.
Add your own numbers honestly. The current market value of your home, every retirement and brokerage account, and the death benefit of any life insurance policy you own outright. Insurance is the line people leave out, and it is frequently the line that puts a family over.
Maryland applies a second tax at the other end. Property passing to someone outside a close circle of relatives is taxed at 10 percent, which catches nieces, nephews, godchildren, close friends, and unmarried partners. Both taxes can be planned around. Neither can be planned around after a death.
Cliff Cohen opened this firm in 1981 and has practiced estate planning, elder law, and business planning ever since. He earned his law degree at the University of Miami and studied business at Boston University before that. He worked in real estate before law school, which is why the property questions in a plan get answered rather than set aside for later.
He is admitted to practice in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, and Illinois. He serves with the Estate and Trust Section of the Montgomery County Bar Association, belongs to the Trusts and Estates Section of the D.C. Bar, and speaks to professional groups on planning with life insurance, business succession, and long term care.
You meet with Cliff, he designs the plan, he drafts it, and he runs the signing appointment. Nothing gets handed off to somebody you have never met.
It depends on what you own, where you own it, and how much privacy and control you want. A will alone still goes through the Register of Wills in Rockville. If you own real property in more than one state, have a blended family, want to control the timing of an inheritance, or want to keep your affairs off the public record, a trust usually earns its cost. We will tell you when it does not.
Beneficiary designations are powerful and incomplete. They control the account and nothing else. They cannot name a guardian, cannot protect a beneficiary who is a minor or has creditors, and cannot address either Maryland tax.
Possibly. Many older trusts contain formulas tied to the federal exemption. When that exemption moved, some of those formulas began sending far more than intended into one trust and far less to a surviving spouse. Anything drafted before the recent federal changes deserves a fresh read.
Four to six weeks from first meeting to signing for most families. You get a flat fee in writing before any drafting starts.
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5335 Wisconsin Ave NW #440, Washington, DC 20015