Every Bit Counts – Estate Planning and Your Bitcoin Assets

Our firm has written extensively about the shifting dynamics of estate planning and ensuring that digital assets are properly accounted and managed. Bitcoin certainly falls under that category. Why? Because the IRS announced in 2014 that Bitcoin will be treated as property for U.S. tax purposes. That means if you buy or sell bitcoin currency, you will need to report either gains or losses on the transactions, and if you received bitcoin as payment for goods and services, you will have to report those receipts as gross income. Also, if you have a substantial amount of bitcoin currency, who receives that asset when you pass on? But first, let’s do a quick overview of bitcoin. Bitcoin is a form of "cryptocurrrency," meaning that you can exchange value anonymously, quickly, and without the intervention of a third-party intermediary (e.g., a bank) meaning there are no transactions costs. A bitcoin owner is issued a...

25 February

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InSight Law On the Cutting Edge of Estate Planning

Posted by Bobby Feisee

in News at the Firm

During the past few months, InSight Law focused on technology to provide better and more efficient service options to our clients. Below is a summary and review of several of our new technology options: Actionstep Portal: The firm has switched customer relationship management systems to Actionstep. They offer a client portal using Amazon Web Services infrastructure to provide a secure storage and exchange of documents between individual users and the firm. This allows clients the option of going “paperless” and reduces the need for mailing paper copies of documents and updates. The paperless option includes electronic copies of your Asset Review Report and Estate Planning Review Worksheets. We introduced the portal late last fall and have more than 20% of our clients already participating. Directive Communication Systems (DCS): As a follow up to our Digital Assets discussion in the last newsletter, we have explored providing an option to store, organize, and manage...

23 May

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Dealing with Digital Assets – A Growing Need

Posted by Bobby Feisee

in Bobby's Blog

If a loved one suddenly passes away, family members, or the estate planning attorney for the decedent, have to organize the decedent’s assets. The usual assets that come to mind include the decedent’s home, vehicle, IRA, checking account, family heirlooms, etc. However, a growing need is finding and organizing the decedent’s digital assets. Certain digital assets can be overlooked, or even lost, during the settlement of an estate. These online accounts are a new class of personal property that may have monetary worth in addition to sentimental value. According to a survey by McAfee, the average internet user has nearly $40,000 in unprotected digital assets. Membership in online loyalty programs have increased more than 26 percent over the past two years and the value is estimated at 2.65 billion, according to the 2013 Colloquy Loyalty Census. This means there may be billions of dollars worth of rewards that may be...

29 August

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Digital Assets in Your Estate: Are You Prepared?

Posted by Bobby Feisee

in Bobby's Blog

[caption width="210" align="alignleft"] Image Courtesy of Petervan's Blog[/caption]Do you have a plan for who will manage your Facebook account, Twitter account, Ebay business, Spotify account, etc.? If you answered no, it’s okay; not many people do. The issue of what happens with “digital assets” and accounts after a loved one passes away is growing in importance with estate planners. It makes sense considering our lives are becoming more and more digitized. A recent study showed that many people value their digital assets at an average of nearly $55,000. Beyond the potential monetary value of your digital assets in your estate, there are other important issues such as privacy, security and legacy planning. It’s a sad, but true fact, that laws tend to lag behind technology, so current statutes and case law are not very helpful in addressing this issue and/or providing guidance for how to properly incorporate digital assets into...