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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Wills and Estate Planning: 6 Reasons Why your Will is Critical to Your Estate Plan
One of the most important tasks you undertake is to create an estate plan to ensure you’re taken care of for the rest of your life and then distribute your assets and provide for your loved ones after you die. A primary component of an estate plan is a will. It is crucial to outline […]
IRS Revises Tax Amounts for 2020, Issues New Rules on Gift Tax Exemption
The IRS announced the annual inflation increases for various tax provisions as of January 1, 2020. The lifetime estate and gift tax exemption is increased to $11.58 million (from $11.4 million). A couple can jointly exempt $23.16 million from estate and gift taxes. The annual gift tax exclusion remains $15,000 for 2020. The standard deduction […]
Mastering the Nuts and Bolts of Living Trusts
Many people, perhaps most people, have living trusts as part of their estate plans. Yet, the communications I receive indicate that the workings of living trusts are a mystery to most people. Living trusts, also known as revocable living trusts, are a key element of most estate plans, because the assets held in a living […]
How To Plug the Estate Tax and Estate Liquidity Leaks in Your Will & Estate Plan
Everyone needs a will… even if all your assets are owned by a living trust or held in joint title. A will is a legal document in which a person, known as the testator, sets forth his or her wishes about how to distribute an estate’s assets, pay debts, care for any minor children, and […]
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Electronic Wills Are Coming
Very slowly but surely, estate planning law is catching up to modern technology. The latest development paves the way for electronic wills in most states. An electronic will, or e-will, is one that recognizes the traditional formalities of a will when they’re in an electronic format. An e-will can be written in an electronic medium, […]
Everyone Should Revisit Estate Planning Before the 2020 Election
Most estate planners say the 2017 tax law made the estate tax rules permanent. But permanent doesn’t mean the same thing in Washington, D.C., that it does in the rest of the country. There’s a good chance the estate and gift tax will change substantially after the 2020 election, and you should prepare for key […]
Ethical Wills – How to Transfer Your Values to Future Generations
You have more than the money and property in your estate to leave your loved ones. More and more people are interested in leaving something more meaningful and intangible as part of their legacies. They want to add a more personal element or statement to their estate plans. Estate planning at its most basic is […]
The Essential Estate Planning Questionnaire and Checklist Provides Simple Questions in Preparing for Retirement
Estate Planning is not all about reducing estate taxes. That always was the case, but few people realized the importance of the non-tax factors until the 2001 tax law began the phase out of the estate tax. Every estate plan, regardless of the estate’s size, needs to address certain issues. Ignore these issues, and your […]
