The Don Gonzalez Professional Association is located in Weston Florida. Our office staff is bi-lingual (Spanish), and family friendly. We can be reached by phone, fax or over the Internet via Skype at DonGonzalez_US_Attorney. Please feel free to call for a consultation about your legal issues.

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The International Organization for Migration said there are more than 200 million migrants around the world today. Europe hosted the largest number of immigrants, with 70.6 million people in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available. North America, with over 45.1 million immigrants, is second, followed by Asia, which hosts nearly 25.3 million. Most of today's migrant workers come from Asia.

Immigration is a modern phenomenon. It owes its existence to the needs of an ever more intensely integrated global capitalist economy to have people move around for the purpose of work, for reproduction of labor power (studies, particularly higher and more specialized forms of knowledge) or political asylum across the borders of, some believe, an increasingly obsolete inter-state system. ammigrants are people who obtain legal status marked, at a minimum, by some form of residence permit that regulates the terms of their employment

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Historically, because companies are artificial persons created by operation of law, the law prescribed what the company could and could not do. Usually this was an expression of the commercial purpose which the company was formed for, and came to referred to as the company's objects, and the extent of the objects are referred to as the company's capacity. If an activity fell outside of the company's capacity it was said to be ultra vires and void.

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At common law, an estate consisted of the tangible assets of real and personal property which belong to a natural person. More recently, the concept of an estate has been expanded to encompass any thing of value to which the deceased person was or might have been entitled to claim during his or her lifetime. The property of the estate must either be bequeathed through a will or transferred through the laws of intestacy if there is no will. A will is the most commonly used legal instrument for the distribution of the property of a deceased person. Before property can be disposed of pursuant to the terms of a will, the will must be submitted to a probate court having jurisdiction of the estate of the deceased. Probate is often considered a relatively lengthy and expensive process, albeit one which may provide greater safeguards with regard to the rights of a deceased person's beneficiaries, though probate often is contested by creditors or disgruntled members of the family of the deceased who feel they have not received their fair share of the deceased's property.

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There are six "Chapters" or types of bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Code, located at Title 11 of the United States Code: * Chapter 7: basic liquidation for individuals and businesses; * Chapter 9: municipal bankruptcy; * Chapter 11: rehabilitation or reorganization, used primarily by business debtors, but sometimes by individuals with substantial debts and assets; * Chapter 12: rehabilitation for family farmers and fishermen; * Chapter 13: rehabilitation with a payment plan for individuals with a regular source of income; * Chapter 15: ancillary and other international cases. The most common types of personal bankruptcy for individuals are Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. As much as 65% of all U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings are Chapter 7 cases. Corporations and other business forms file under Chapters 7 or 11. In Chapter 7, a debtor surrenders his or her non-exempt property to a bankruptcy trustee who then liquidates the property and distributes the proceeds to the debtor's unsecured creditors. In exchange, the debtor is entitled to a discharge of some debt; however, the debtor will not be granted a discharge if he or she is guilty of certain types of inappropriate behavior (e.g. concealing records relating to financial condition) and certain debts (e.g. spousal and child support, student loans, some taxes) will not be discharged even though the debtor is generally discharged from his or her debt. Many individuals in financial distress own only exempt property (e.g. clothes, household goods, an older car) and will not have to surrender any property to the trustee. The amount of property that a debtor may exempt varies from state to state. Chapter 7 relief is available only once in any eight year period. Generally, the rights of secured creditors to their collateral continues even though their debt is discharged. For example, absent some arrangement by a debtor to surrender a car or "reaffirm" a debt, the creditor with a security interest in the debtor's car may repossess the car even if the debt to the creditor is discharged. In Chapter 13, the debtor retains ownership and possession of all of his or her assets, but must devote some portion of his or her future income to repaying creditors, generally over a period of three to five years. The amount of payment and the period of the repayment plan depend upon a variety of factors, including the value of the debtor's property and the amount of a debtor's income and expenses. Secured creditors may be entitled to greater payment than unsecured creditors.

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Many opponents of the estate tax refer to it as the "death tax" in their public discourse partly because a death must occur before any tax on the deceased's assets can be realized and also because the tax rate is determined by the value of the deceased's assets rather than the amount each inheritor receives. Neither the number of inheritors nor the size of each inheritor's portion factors into the calculations for rate of the Estate Tax.
This is an imprecise use of the term "death tax," which has been used since the 19th century to refer to all the taxes -- estate, inheritance, succession and otherwise -- that may come due upon a death. This also is how the phrase "death taxes" is used in the Internal Revenue Code.
The political use of "death tax" as a synonym for "estate tax" was popularized by Jack Faris of the National Federation of Independent Business[28] during the Speakership of Newt Gingrich. It has been widely but inaccurately attributed to Republican pollster Frank Luntz. In a memo, Luntz wrote that the term "death tax" "kindled voter resentment in a way that 'inheritance tax' and 'estate tax' do not"
Linguist George Lakoff alleges the phrase is a deliberate and carefully calculated neologism which is used as a propaganda tactic to aid in the repeal of estate taxes. However the use of "death tax" rather than "estate tax" in the wording of questions in the 2002 National Election Survey increased support for estate tax repeal by only a few percentage points.

Status of U.S. Tax
Congress has passed tax laws that have changed the estate tax. Since 2003, the top rate has been lowered from 49% by one percentage point per year; in 2006 the top rate was 46%. If the US Congress makes no changes to US tax law, the top rate will continue to drop by one percentage point per year until 2009 when the top rate is scheduled to be 45%; in 2010 all estates will be taxed at 0%; and in 2011 the estate tax will return at a top rate of 55%. Most experts expect that Congress will change the tax law before then.
If the law does not change, for 2010 property transferred from decedents will be treated as if it is transferred by gift. This means the basis of the property for calculating capital gains when the recipient eventually sells the property will be the same basis as in the hands of the decedent. This is generally called carryover basis. However most recipients will effectively get the same result they would receive under present law, because section 1022 allows the executor of an estate to allocate up to 1.3 million in basis for singles and 3 million for surviving spouses to the property of the estate. This will effectively give most recipients a tax basis in the property equal to the full market value ie. "step up basis". see 26 U.S.C. 1022. (Source: Wikipedia)

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