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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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 […]
Estate, Gift and Income Tax Amounts Increase for 2023
The IRS announced the annual inflation increases for various tax provisions that take effect January 1, 2023. The lifetime estate and gift tax exemp- tion increases to $12.92 million (from $11.7 million). A couple can jointly exclude $25.84 million. Gifts of up to $17,000 can be made to any person without being included in 2023’s […]
Two Final Touches to Secure Your Legacy
Many estate plans, even the better estate plans drafted by solid attorneys, lack two essential elements. The absence of these features makes life more difficult than it needs to be for loved ones. I’ve seen many cases of the negative effects of these oversights and was saddened to realize how easily they could have been […]
How Can Grandparents and Great-Grandparents Help Their Families?
More and more grandparents and great-grand- parents are the primary caregivers and source of support for their grandchildren and great-grand- children. The latest data indicate that 8% of grandparents, or 7.7 million, have grandchildren living with them. There are many reasons grandparents assume full responsibility for grand- children. The grandchild’s parents might have died. The […]
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The New Rules of Incentive Trusts
Incentive trusts were one of the hottest estate planning tools of the 1990s. Much has been learned about their advantages and disadvantages, and it’s import- ant for estate owners to know the lessons learned. Incentive trusts became popular among people worried that bequeathing their wealth might have negative impacts on their children and grand-children. They […]
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 […]
You Can 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 […]
What Readers Want to Know: Questions from My Email Inbox
A unique feature of Retirement Watch is readers can email questions directly to me. I read all the emails I receive and respond to each as best I can. Questions often inspire articles in the newsletter. In this issue, I answer recent questions that I believe are of general interest but don’t require a full […]
