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...

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InSight Law On the Cutting Edge of Estate Planning

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...

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Dealing with Digital Assets – A Growing Need

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...

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