Dear Betrayed,
Your father fell into a trap.
If your father leaves his other children $205,000, and deducts that sum from this brother’s inheritance, that would seem like the path of least resistance. It would be cheaper and easier than challenging the notary’s assessment of your father’s competence in court.
Giving you $205,000 over a number of years will be a more difficult proposition, given your father’s failing health. The annual exclusion, or the amount you can give a third party without using your annual gift- or estate-tax exemption, is $17,000 in 2023 for a single person or $34,000 for a married couple. Otherwise, you must file a gift-tax return with the Internal Revenue Service.
For 2023, the lifetime gift- and estate-tax exemption is $12.92 million for a single person, or $25.84 million for a married couple. Those rates will sunset at the end of 2025 if Congress doesn’t act, reverting to their levels prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which went into effect in 2018.
The notarization process has flaws