Estate Planning
Estate Planning is the process of determining how your wealth and assets should be transferred to the heirs of your choice: your children, grandchildren, friends, families, charitable causes, etc. and then deciding which legal tools and structures to use to best meet your estate planning goals.
Estate planning is not simply reducing or eliminating taxes and avoiding probate. Only after establishing how you want your estate’s assets to be distributed should you consider ways to reduce taxes and avoid probate. From there, good estate plans deal with a host of other issues. Now, with all but a few estates exempt from the federal estate tax, those other issues are, or should be, at the forefront of estate planning.
An estate plan is to ensure that you are taken care of the rest of your life and that your wealth is transferred to the people you want to have it. A good estate plan ensures these goals are accomplished with as much efficiency and as little cost as possible. An estate plan addresses the management and distribution of an individual’s property and financial obligations after he or she dies with financial tools such as wills, revocable living trusts and power of attorney.
For a comprehensive overview of Estate Planning, please start with our article:
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All the Ways You Can (Legally) Avoid Probate
Avoiding probate often is a major estate planning goal, but most people don’t learn all the strategies available. In probate, a deceased person’s estate is administered and distributed according to state and local law. The process ensures debts are paid and legal title to assets passes as the decedent wanted, or according to state law […]
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What you don’t know about retirement can hurt you. In fact, just a few wrong decisions in your investments, taxes, or estate planning could completely derail your retirement plans. Worse yet, the rules of the game keep changing, making it harder to keep up. For these reasons, I’ve assembled all the key points – everything you need to know — into one comprehensive report. Click here today for free access.
Get To Know These 6 ‘Hidden’ Estate Planning Opportunities
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Your 20-Minute Estate Plan: Building a Lasting Legacy
Estate planning should be a key part of your financial planning. Unfortunately most planning experts shroud the topic in complex tax, legal, and insurance jargon that will disinterest most people. I’ve put together this report to provide you with simple, practical explanations that will help determine the right elements of your estate plan. To learn more, click the PDF below. […]
The 6 Most Common Ways Retirement Plans Fall Apart
It doesn’t take much to send a solid retirement plan off the rails. Fortunately, the likely causes of retirement failures are well-known and often avoidable. Here are the six most common reasons retirement plans fall short of their goals: 1. Helping too much People often dip too far into their retirement funds to help loved […]
How To Maximize the Tax Benefits of Estate Planning Gifts
Today’s high estate and gift tax exemptions could be slashed in a few years. Maximize those and other benefits now. The substantial increases in estate and gift taxes that were widely discussed in 2021 appear to be off the table, at least for now. But the current lifetime estate and gift tax exemption is scheduled […]
