The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Washington’s 2014 Estate Tax

In “emergency” legislation passed last summer, Governor Inslee signed a bill that made some changes to Washington’s estate tax.  Most of these changes became effective on January 1, 2014.  Here are some of the more important changes:

The Good – Washington’s $2 million dollar per person estate tax exemption is now indexed for inflation.  This means the exemption limit will rise with the annual rate of inflation.

The Bad – Washington increased its tax rates on amounts over $4 million and created a new top tax rate of 20%.

The Ugly – The legislation added a Qualified Family-Owned Business Interest deduction for estate tax purposes.  This change is probably good, bad and ugly all at the same time.  It is good in that there is a new deduction for family owned business and simultaneously bad and ugly given all the hoops one needs to jump through to successfully claim the deduction.

If you want to know how these changes may apply to you and how you can plan for them, we’d be happy to meet with you.

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