Are you a member of the TLPP?

Good news for those who are members of the Texas Legal Protection Plan!  Jennifer Cochran is now a participating attorney in the plan and can provide the following services to members - adoption, divorce, estate planning, contracts, name changes, family law, probate and other civil matters.  For those of you who are not members but are interested in a plan that will allow you to have affordable accessible legal representation for a nominal fee each month, visit the TLPP at www.tlpp.org for more details on the plan.

Introducing our Westlake Hills location

The Law Office of Jennifer R. Cochran P.C. now has a new location in Westlake Hills! We're all settled in and taking appointments. Come see us at 3355 Bee Cave Road, Suite 103, Westlake Hills, Texas 78746 or call us at (512) 870-8187. We're absolutely thrilled to have two locations at Westlake Hills and Dripping Springs so we are even more accessible to our clients throughout central Texas.

Directions From the South:
Take Mopac north. Exit Rollingwood/Bee Cave Road. Head West for approximately 1.5 miles. After you go through the light at Walsh Tarlton Lane, proceed to the top of the hill and turn left into 3355 Bee Cave Road. We are located in Bldg. 1, upstairs in Suite 103.

Directions From the North:
Take Mopac south. Exit Bee Cave Road. Head East for approximately 2 miles. After you go through the light at Beaver Trail, go past Thai Kitchen and turn right into 3355 Bee Cave Road. We are located in Bldg. 1, upstairs in Suite 103.

In 2012, Many Tax Benefits Increase

Thomson Franklin circulated the below newsletter to their subscribers.  Please continue reading for very helpful information as you begin thinking about taxes!

“For tax year 2012, personal exemptions and standard deductions will rise and tax brackets will widen due to inflation. Please read further to see which inflationary measures may affect your return next year:

By law, the dollar amounts for a variety of tax provisions, affecting virtually every taxpayer, must be revised each year to keep pace with inflation. New dollar amounts affecting 2012 returns, filed by most taxpayers in early 2013, include the following:

• The value of each personal and dependent exemption, available to most taxpayers, is $3,800, up $100 from 2011.
• The new standard deduction is $11,900 for married couples filing a joint return, up $300, $5,950 for singles and married individuals filing separately, up $150, and $8,700 for heads of household, up $200. Nearly two out of three taxpayers take the standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions, such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.
• Tax-bracket thresholds increase for each filing status. For a married couple filing a joint return, for example, the taxable-income threshold separating the 15-percent bracket from the 25-percent bracket is $70,700, up from $69,000 in 2011.

Credits, deductions, and related phase outs.

• For tax year 2012, the maximum earned income tax credit (EITC) for low- and moderate- income workers and working families rises to $5,891, up from $5,751 in 2011. The maximum income limit for the EITC rises to $50,270, up from $49,078 in 2011.The credit varies by family size, filing status and other factors, with the maximum credit going to joint filers with three or more qualifying children.
• The foreign earned income deduction rises to $95,100, an increase of $2,200 from the maximum deduction for tax year 2011.
• The modified adjusted gross income threshold at which the lifetime learning credit begins to phase out is $104,000 for joint filers, up from $102,000, and $52,000 for singles and heads of household, up from $51,000.
• For 2012, annual deductible amounts for Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) increased from the tax year 2011 amounts; please see the table below:

Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs)	Self-only coverage	Family coverage
Minimum annual deductible	$2,100	$4,200
Maximum annual deductible	$3,150	$6,300
Maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses	$4,200	$7,650

The $2,500 maximum deduction for interest paid on student loans begins to phase out for a married taxpayers filing a joint returns at $125,000 and phases out completely at $155,000, an increase of $5,000 from the phase out limits for tax year 2011. For single taxpayers, the phase out ranges remain at the 2011 levels.

Estate and Gift

For an estate of any decedent dying during calendar year 2012, the basic exclusion from estate tax amount is $5,120,000, up from $5,000,000 for calendar year 2011. Also, if the executor chooses to use the special use valuation method for qualified real property, the aggregate decrease in the value of the property resulting from the choice cannot exceed $1,040,000, up from $1,020,000 for 2011.  The annual exclusion for gifts remains at $13,000.

Other Items

• The monthly limit on the value of qualified transportation benefits exclusion for qualified parking provided by an employer to its employees for 2012 rises to $240, up $10 from the limit in 2011. However, the temporary increase in the monthly limit on the value of the qualified transportation benefits exclusion for transportation in a commuter highway vehicle and transit pass provided by an employer to its employees expires and reverts to $125 for 2012.
• Several tax benefits are unchanged in 2012. For example, the additional standard deduction for blind people and senior citizens remains $1,150 for married individuals and $1,450 for singles and heads of household.

Compliments of Thomas H. Franklin & Associates, LLC, 907 W. Roscoe St., Suite 2, Chicago, IL 60657, (312) 310-3171, www.thomashfranklin.com.

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Birth Certificate Case

In the Louisiana Adoption Case, It's the Child Who Suffers

By Kevin Cathcart via The Huffington Post

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a same-sex couple denied an accurate birth certificate listing both men as parents of the Louisiana-born child they adopted in New York. The Court left in place a dangerous decision that carves out an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution and leaves adopted children vulnerable when they move or travel from state to state.

This is a terrible outcome, both for the law and for Oren Adar, Mickey Smith and their 5-year-old son. Oren and Mickey are two loving fathers who want only to enjoy the rights and privileges that other adoptive parents enjoy and to provide the stable, nurturing and loving environment their son deserves.

Here's what happened: Oren and Mickey adopted their son in New York. Because he was born in Louisiana, they requested an accurate birth certificate from the State of Louisiana listing them both as parents, which every state routinely provides for children who have been adopted. The Louisiana Registrar refused to issue it in this instance, however, because she believed that as an unmarried couple, Oren and Mickey would not have been eligible to adopt had they lived in Louisiana. Lambda Legal went to federal court on behalf of the fathers and their child, and we won, but Louisiana still refused, and it appealed the decision. We won again at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but Louisiana continued to refuse to issue the accurate birth certificate. The State Attorney General appealed again, this time requesting a rehearing "en banc" (before all the judges of the Fifth Circuit), and this time, in a sharply divided decision, we lost.

We asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case because, by carving out an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Fifth Circuit decision ignores almost 100 years of well-established Supreme Court law and conflicts with other federal circuits across the country. It creates an exception to the uniformly recognized respect for judgments that states have come to rely upon and leaves adopted children and their parents vulnerable in their interactions with officials from other states.

Officials in the State of Louisiana were willing to weaken the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution and harm children just to make clear that they do not approve of gay or other unmarried parents. The Supreme Court is willing to let stand a ruling that says you can be a legal parent in one state, but another state can say that you are not. The result of this is that the hundreds of children in foster care in Louisiana who are awaiting adoption are more likely to be kept in foster care than adopted into loving homes, because the state is telling unmarried couples that if they adopt those children in another state, they will not be able to get a corrected birth certificate, and the Supreme Court is allowing them to do so. So, Louisiana officials and the members of the Supreme Court have not only harmed Oren and Mickey's son, but they are harming countless other children.

The inability to obtain an accurate birth certificate creates serious problems. A birth certificate is the only common identity document that establishes identity, parentage and citizenship. An accurate birth certificate is uniformly recognized and often required in legal contexts, including determining the parents' and child's right to make medical decisions for other family members; determining custody, care and support of the child in the event of a separation or divorce between the parents; obtaining a social security card for the child; obtaining social security survivor benefits for the child in the event of a parent's death; establishing a legal parent-child relationship for inheritance purposes in the event of a parent's death; claiming the adopted child as a dependent on the parents' respective insurance plans; registering the child for school; claiming the child as a dependent for purposes of federal income taxes; and obtaining a passport for the child and traveling internationally.

Oren Adar and Mickey Smith are loving parents; no Louisiana state official, circuit court judge or Supreme Court justice can change that. They will continue to provide for their son the stable and nurturing environment that all children deserve. And Lambda Legal will continue to work with them and with other same-sex parents to secure the rights, responsibilities and protections that all parents and children deserve. After the Supreme Court refusal to hear this case, we are disappointed, but we remain determined as ever to keep fighting.

NOTE FROM THE ZEALOUS ADVOCATE:  What does this mean for same sex parents in Texas?  Many family attorneys were hoping that the Supreme Court would hear this case and rule that two parents of the same gender shall be listed on the child's birth certificate.  This past legislative session in Texas, Equality Texas, introduced a bill that would accomplish this.  It was not successful.  So, we have to wait until the next legislative session or hope that something happens at the federal level.