Estate-tax

You'll work much better with your lawyer if you read this book first.

I read a library copy, but then bought my own.

This book works well with Condon's "Beyond the Grave", which is much weaker on the nuts and bolts of estate tax planning but much better at getting you to think through the human (family conflict) side.

WHAT IT COVERS: This book is primarily a primer, explaining the foundations of estate planning including: an overview and whether you actually need to spend time reading the book and drafting estate docs, drafting a will, how to think about what assets will go to which family members and other beneficiaries, financial instruments such as brokerage accounts/bank accounts/life insurance and how they fit into wealth transfer, as well as powers of attorney and health care directives. What I like best about the book is that you know you are getting candid advice from someone not trying to bill you by the hour or sell you variable annuity life insurance. In my own area of expertise - finance - the fact that the author's opinion regarding life insurance is dead on (tax planning should be kept separate from investing strategies and as such variable annuities are complete bunk) gives me great comfort that I'm getting straight shooting advice in the rest of the book.

WHAT IT CAN BE USED FOR: The book can serve readers on two different levels. If you are going to get a lawyer anyway but are the type of person that wants to be educated when you talk to lawyers/accountants/brokers, this book will have you speaking the same language and is an easy read over the course of a weekend. If you want to prepare an estate plan yourself, this book serves as an ample resource to help create the necessary docs. The fill-in forms in the back are certainly capable of serving as the basis for your basic estate docs, but at the same time it may be more comforting to most people to have a seamless document that they are not penciling in blanks, which leads to my next point...

THINK ABOUT GETTING THE COMPANION SOFTWARE: This book is published by Nolo Press, a well-respected publisher of legal self-help books. They also publish a software title in conjunction with Quicken (makers of the financial planning software) called Quicken Lawyer which not only has an offline/online legal manual with much of the info included in this book, but its main function is to create a battery of estate documents for you through very simple step-by-step interviews - you answer the questions, it drafts the legalese, you print and execute it. I would almost recommend just getting the software instead b/c there is a decent offline/online manual included, but for those that really want to know the why behind what they're doing, get this book and the software. See my review on Quicken Lawyer Personal Deluxe for more info.

LIMITATIONS: The book readily admits there are situations that require an attorney and points out throughout the book which situations require it. In general, get an attorney if you expect to owe federal estate tax (threshold is currently estates over $1.5 mm, but rising rapidly through 2010), have an ex-wife or two, have kids that don't speak to each other, or other complex family dynamic.

The author really knows her subject, and I'm grateful for this book.

By the way, estate planning is for everone, not merely the "wealthy." The cost (in time and fees) to have a customed designed and implemented estate plan will probably be the best investment you will ever make to protect and preserve your wealth for your loved ones.

There are 4 chapters on the Section 1031 Like Kind exchange alone. There are also 4 chapters on the Passive Loss Rules. In addition there are other chapters on Home Mortgage Deduction, Depreciation, and the Home Office. The text is easy to read and very informative. There are lots of Tips throughout all the chapters advising the reader of good things to do as well as inadvisable tactics. Dealer Status is covered all too briefly in my opinion, as I would have liked to seen more on that subject. I would also have liked to seen more on corporations and there is no mention of Limited Liability Companies. But despite these shortcomings the book is excellent and covers the topics in good detail. This is obviously a dry subject and reading the manuals and guidelines can sometimes give one a headache. But with this book no aspirin is needed. This book is a must for any serious real estate investor, whether you do your taxes yourself or hire a professional. This book should be required reading before you get your real estate investor secret decoder ring.

I believe this book is a necessary addition to any real-estate investor's library. Spending 30 minutes reviewing the chapter related to your contemplated real-estate transaction will fill you with ideas for suitable tax strategies.

I have used this tax guide as the main reference in writing a continuing education course on the subject of IRS section 1031 tax deferred exchanges. Vern does the most thorough job of covering this subject that I have read.

Vern covers the timing and consequence of most real estate transactions. He also covers personal tax consequences, such as "office-in-home" rules, which apply to real estate agents.

I recomemnd this book highly in all the real estate courses I teach and sometimes use it as a prize in classroom games. Whether you are a real estate investor or agent you should read this book and keep it near your desk.

The book is written in an easy to understand manner, which follows the most important codes that are used in tax today. The only drawback of these books are the fact that since the tax codes are constantly changing, the books are updated about every year.

To get a feel for the lack of detail take a look at the Table of Contents, note that it seems very comprehensive but when you look a little closer you will see that most of the chapters are LESS THAN 5 PAGES! The subtopics in each chapter usually make up a single paragraph with a large font bold heading that takes up a lot of the page.

In short, if you want to get an overview of the components you might ask your advisor to explain to you, this would be a valuable purchase. If you want to understand these things yourself, you will be disappointed.

However, the book offered me numerous new strategies for more effectively protecting my wealth. The best thing about the book is that it is structured in a way that will allow just about anybody to find specific, tailored advice.

Good work Jarvis and Mandell! I look forward to your next book!