http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog Bird, Svendsen, Brothers, Scheske & Pattison, P.C.'s Law Blog Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:15:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Blanche Lincoln (D, Ark) and Jon Kyl (R, Ariz) have introduced legislation to add a "35 and 5" estate tax extension to a small business bill the Senate is debating. The "35 and 5" means: 35% tax rate and $5 million unified credit (i.e., you can die with $5 million ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/07/19/relief-coming/ Two Michigan prosecutors mull over the new law: The statute that took effect last week (PA 2010 No. 60; MCL 257.602b) has been widely reputed to ban only texting in a moving vehicle. It appears to me, however, that the language could be interpreted more broadly than that. Under ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/07/07/new-texting-ban/ Dispatches from our internal office memoranda: 1. I can authoritatively report, from a couple of different sources, that the "tax reforms" that are now going through Congress attached to some other legislation have nothing to do with estate or gift tax. They're essentially about some Bush-Tax-Cut related benefits for business that ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/06/10/estate-tax-update-3/ One of the lesser-known elements of the new health care bill: mandatory breaks for breast-feeding mothers (apparently, there's no corresponding breaks for fathers). It applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. It doesn't give much guidance, though. For instance, it doesn't say how many breaks must be provided ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/04/08/223/ Dispatches from our internal memoranda: 1. The Supreme Court has held several times in the past that there's no constitutional problem with a retroactive tax increase, but having said that, almost all the speakers agreed (as do I) that the more time that goes by, the less is the possibility of ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/04/01/estate-tax-legislative-update/ There's a tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles. The credit is in the $4,000-$6,000 range. This is potentially huge for people in those big retirement communities where everyone revs up their golf cart hogs to get around Condo Phases 1, 2, 3, and 4. Unfortunately, the IRS has recently ruled ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/02/22/golf-cart/ You pay 7.65 cents in Social Security taxes for every dollar you earn . . . until your wages hit $106,800. At that point, the SS tax ceases. It's call the Social Security "wage base." The amount is indexed for inflation, but it didn't go up in 2010 and it's ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/02/17/cap-it/ I say "let 'em surf." It's probably the most-useful thing they do all day: "The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: 'It was kind of distraction per se,' he later ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/02/03/surfin-sec/ It's not as sweet as the repeal of Prohibition, but the Estate Tax has been repealed . . . for now . . . and only temporarily. Under convoluted earlier legislation, the Estate Tax was scheduled to go away as of 1/1/2010, but then scheduled to come back on 1/1/2011 ... http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/01/11/repealed/ The 2010 standard mileage rate is now 50 cents per mile, which is a reduction from 2009's 55 cents. The reason: lower fuel costs. But are they really that much lower? http://sturgislawfirm.com/blog/2010/01/06/new-mileage-rate/