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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Bob’s Journal
Three key factors are causing small company stocks to outperform larger company stocks in U.S. markets. Large company stocks led the way through the early stages of this bull market, but smaller company stocks surged ahead more recently. As proof, the S&P 500 gained 8.21% for the year to date, while the small company index […]
Bob’s Journal
Earnings season for the second quarter is over, so you should be ready for stock prices to decline. I know that sounds counterintuitive, since the economy is strong, and growth might be increasing. This earnings season was a positive one with about two-thirds of companies reporting results exceeding estimates for earnings and revenue. Also, more […]
The “Financial Emergency Kit” and Documents Every Estate Planning Strategy Needs (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this article I talked about the importance of having a Financial Emergency Kit, along with a few of its essential elements. So this week, let’s continue the discussion and review the other important elements that make up your Financial Emergency Kit, starting with: A letter of instruction, which can be valuable […]
5 Ways the Financial Services Industry Comes Up Short: How to Make the Most of Your Wealth
Many high-net-worth people have financial advisors and some kind of financial plan, but I sometimes hear that the advisors chosen aren’t providing the full range advice their clients want or need. In this month’s Retirement Watch Spotlight Series, using research and surveys, I’ll identify the areas in which much of the financial services industry is coming […]
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Bob’s Journal
Investors in index funds might want to consider moving to funds that equally weight each stock. The major stock indexes are capitalization-weighted, or cap-weighted. That means each stock’s weight in the index is determined by its market capitalization, which is the value of its outstanding shares of stock. The greater the fund’s capitalization, the larger […]
The Financial Emergency Kit: How to Build a Complete Estate Planning Strategy and Document File
Many people think they have estate plans… but oftentimes it turns out they really don’t. I’m not talking about those who haven’t done any planning and don’t even have a basic will. I’m talking about people who have taken action on their estate plans — and yet have plans that are woefully incomplete. You see, […]
Bob’s Journal
Stocks might be beginning one of their periodic rotations. We could be seeing a shift from recent winners to recent losers. Another way to view the change is as a shift from growth stocks to value stocks. For some time, a few sectors outperformed the market indexes, and a few of the stocks in those […]
6 Key Issues about Gifts to Children and Grandchildren
One of the questions I receive most frequently from Retirement Watch subscribers is how to make estate planning gifts. Let’s take a look at the issues that recur among many readers. Gifts to family members are one of the staples of estate planning. But the tax law has changed, and that’s altered the role of […]
