Recent Blog Posts
Be Careful How You Word Your Declaration of Trust
Even if you are very early in the research and brainstorming phase of your estate planning process, you have probably given more than a passing thought to setting up a trust. Living trusts, which are set up during your lifetime, and testamentary trusts, the establishment of which is provided for in your will, make… Read More »
Beyond PPP: The New Stimulus Bill Contains Other Forgivable Loan Options for Small Businesses
The new COVID-19 pandemic relief bill is thousands of pages long, but a few aspects of it have attracted the lion’s share of the media coverage. Which individuals will get another round of direct stimulus payments? How much money will these payments be, and how soon will they be in people’s bank accounts? Small… Read More »
Good News for PPP Borrowers: A Simplified Loan Forgiveness Application and a More Streamlined Application Process
The COVID-19 virus may be here to stay, but 2021 is a new year that provides new opportunities to confront the pandemic from a public health perspective as well as an economic one. So far, there are reasons to be optimistic, as several vaccines have been approved and, across the DC area, many people… Read More »
Should Your Business Go into Hibernation for the COVID-19 Winter?
Some businesses have hibernation (or estivation, as the case may be) built into their business model. The ice cream parlors and fudge shops in seaside towns virtually anywhere north of Ocean City are only open in the summer. Likewise, ski slopes are only open in the winter, as are glass-roofed hotels in Arctic regions… Read More »
What Happens If a Maryland Resident Dies Without a Will?
As another decade begins, your New Year’s resolutions become less and less like the ones you used to set in your youth. Remember your resolution in 1999, when you resolved to brush your teeth every day, or your 2005 resolution to always get up before noon? If you are old enough to read a… Read More »
New Years Resolution: Read Several Drafts of a Business contract Before You Sign
We have finally made it to the end of 2020, and 2021 promises to be a new beginning with new opportunities. An identifying characteristic of successful entrepreneurs is that they see challenges as opportunities; when they see a need, they find a way to meet it. It is too soon to know what they… Read More »
Every Day Is Tax Season for Small Business Owners: Business Tax Advice for the Holiday Season
Everywhere you go, which in the age of COVID-19 means every website you visit, you find people lamenting about how different this holiday season is from any other you have experienced. No multigenerational Thanksgiving dinner. No Black Friday crowds. No Secret Santa gift exchanges at the office. If you are a small business owner,… Read More »
Heated Tables for Outdoor Dining: How to Spend Your Winter Ready Grant Money
New cases of COVID-19 are surging in the Washington DC area and just about everywhere else, now that the weather is getting too cool for outdoor recreation to be practical. Meanwhile, pandemic fatigue is real, and it may be another factor contributing to the surge in new COVID-19 infections. After quarantining all summer and… Read More »
Lesser Known Pandemic-Related Tax Credits
Can you believe that 2020 is almost over? Most years, the sign of the end of the year is a parade of trick-or-treaters bearing increasingly heavy plastic pumpkins full of candy; once they disappear, Christmas carols start playing on the radio of every retail store. This year is different; there are no holiday celebrations… Read More »
Changing the Beneficiaries in Your Will Does Not Always Mean Undue Influence
In probate law, undue influence means that the deceased person wrote or modified their will the way they did only because someone else coerced or deceived them into doing so. You can cite undue influence if the decedent was too ill to understand their actions at the time they signed their will. When an… Read More »
