How to Read a Property Tax Card
Every parcel of real estate in the State of New Hampshire has an assessor’s record. Commonly, we would know that record as a ‘Property Card’, ‘Assessor’s Card’, or a ‘Tax Card’. Before the Internet changed everyone’s life, you could go to the Assessing Office in any municipality and see the actual card for any property. There would be notes on it in pencil and pen. There would be corrections and ‘scratch-outs’. There may even be a photo of the property, but that would be unlikely. Better than that, the assessing clerk would hand you the card and be available to answer any questions. Today, most of the cards are on the Internet and you may not even know where the Assessing Office is located in your municipality. So, we offer these general considerations to help you make sense of the dizzying array of details and codes on your Property Tax Card –to speed things along, we will call these ‘PTC’s’ as we go along. [Read more…]
Some ideas on using trusts
With the recent changes to federal estate tax law, common strategies for minimizing the amount the government taxes the property you transfer to your family have changed. Increasingly, reducing capital gains taxes on your most valuable assets may be more important than minimizing the property subject to the federal estate tax. For this reason, estate planning techniques such as Qualified Personal Residence Trusts and Life Insurance Trusts are likely of little or no benefit to many clients. [Read more…]
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