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:
Found 731 Articles.
Get access to our full article archive by subscribing to Retirement Watch and Retirement Watch Spotlight Series.
Trust Fund Babies
The wealthy used to go to great lengths to set up trust funds that would provide amply for at least the next generation and often for future generations. Those family wealthy dynasties appear to be out of favor, according to this article from The Washington Post. They’re worried about spoiling their kids and not allowing […]
Making Your Most Important Estate Planning Decision – Choosing Your Trustee
The success of your Estate Planning often is determined by the choice of trustee. The importance of that choice isn’t discussed often or fully enough. Many estate plans now include one or more trusts set up for various purposes, so this is a vital issue for most people. A trust is managed and administered by […]
Why Grandparents Should Like 529 Savings Plans
Grandparents are contributing more to their grandkids’ educations than in the past, and the best way to do this is through a section 529 college savings plan. Even when it isn’t clear a grandchild will attend college, 529 savings plans are good estate and financial planning tools to implement. A number of factors cause grandparents […]
Investing Strategies to Help Grandkids
Summer is filled with tax-advantaged ways to provide financial help for grandkids who are old enough to work. The Estate Planning strategies also work during other periods when the youngsters work. Some of the estate planning strategies are useful only if you own a business, but first here’s one that everyone can use. You can […]
SUBSCRIBE TO RETIREMENT WATCH
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.
Key Estate Planning Mistakes You Need to Avoid
The important step in Estate Planning is to learn from the mistakes of others. Unlike many other areas, you don’t have a second chance with an estate plan. The major estate planning mistakes in estate planning are committed often. There would be very few problem estates if we learned from others’ errors. So, try to […]
Estate Planning for Digital Assets
We moved rapidly from a paper to a digital business and financial world. Digital as-sets and transactions probably are a bigger part of your life than you realize, even when you think you don’t use much technology. The digital world needs to be in your estate plan, otherwise the cost and time involved in settling […]
Naming Trusts as IRA Beneficiaries
Trusts find their way into more and more estate plans, because they provide valuable benefits. Many people want to use trusts with their IRAs. I receive an increasing number of inquiries from readers asking how they can name a trust as beneficiary of their IRAs instead of individual heirs. That’s where they can get into […]
Knowing When to Update Your Estate Planning
Having an estate plan is important, but having one means only part of your job is done. A plan has to be complete and current. Not enough people have an estate plan, but of those that do a high percentage let their plans become outdated. Sometimes having a plan that isn’t current is worse than […]
