Estate Planning Newsletters

Greetings Taxpayers:

Enclosed you will find this year's ATax Organizer@ for the preparation of your 2003 Income tax returns. Although the following information might not be of interest to my broader client base, it does deal with the specific areas of both tax and real estate law, and I thought it might be helpful to a few clients who in the unique position of owning homes which either in a historic district or could be certified (or are already certified) as Ahistoric structures@, regardless of the district in which they are located. Here is the Atax tip@ which may be helpful:

The Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentive allows an owner of a historic residence to take a charitable deduction for up to 11% of a building's value for the Adonation@ of its Afaçade (e.g. the exterior)@ to a charitable trust. Trusts for historic preservation have made the program more available to ordinary taxpayers.

By Adonation@ I do not mean that you have to share ownership of your residence with some civic organization; you only donate what is, in effect, an Aeasement@ to the historic trust. Such an easement would restrict an owner's ability to make significant changes to the façade. In towns like Lexington, local Historic Boards already impose obstacles to changing the façade of an historic building. Donation of the façade to a qualified Trust will not, practically speaking, diminish an owner's property rights, and the owner will gain a huge tax deduction. In most situations, the donation will neither interfere with refinancing nor cause a reduction in a property's value when the owner decides to sell. Because every property is unique, however, a real estate Broker should be consulted for an opinion whether the donation of a particular property's façade would have a psychological or other impact upon future potential Buyers of the property.

Most of my tax clients are clients of long standing for other legal matters. Occasionally, I find that a few tax clients get the mistaken impression that I deal almost exclusively with income tax returns. While assisting clients with all types of tax matters is a significant area of my practice, I devote the majority of my law practice time dealing with estate settlement, estate planning, real estate transactions, as well as criminal, injury, and business litigation. My firm's new web site is http://www.georgefootepc.com/; my new e-mail address is georgefoote@rcn.com. If you know someone in need of legal services, I hope you will recommend me to them. Thank you.