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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Beware Asset Protection Trusts
Asset protection planners and several states have worked for the last couple of decades to develop trusts that will protect assets from creditors. The ideas were to make asset protection more affordable and also to keep in the U.S. assets that were being transferred to overseas trusts in jurisdictions with strong asset protection reputations. But […]
Updating the Bypass Trust for Estate Planning
Is the Bypass Trust dead? Many people believed when the lifetime estate tax exemption rose to $5 million per person (indexed for inflation), the role of bypass trusts in most Estate Planning strategies ended. Far from it. Under the current tax law the bypass trust can be turned from a powerful estate tax saver into […]
New 2014 Estate, Income Tax Levels for Estate Planning
Most of the inflation-indexing adjustments that will affect Estate Planning for 2014 were announced in November 2013. The estate tax exemption for 2014 is $5,340,000 per person. This applies to a combination of lifetime gifts and the estate value. It is an increase from $5,250,000 in 2013. 2014 Gift Tax Exclusion Affecting Estate Planning The […]
When a Gift Tax Return is Required for Estate Planning
Don’t think making a tax free gift means a gift tax return isn’t due. The general Estate Planning rule is you need to file a gift tax return for any gift that exceeds the annual gift tax exclusion ($14,000 per recipient in 2013). A gift that exceeds the annual exclusion either reduces your lifetime estate […]
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Simple Low-Cost Estate Planning Ways to Help Grandchildren
For many of my readers, helping the grandkids is a high priority after ensuring their Estate Planning affords their own financial independence. There are so many ways to help beyond making cash gifts and setting up Uniform Gifts/Trusts to Minors Accounts. In fact, those two widely-used methods often are far from the best ways to help. […]
Wise Estate Planning Ways to Make Family Gifts
We’re entering the traditional gift-giving season. The tax rules still are important. Too many people believe that with the estate tax exemption set at $5 million per person, they don’t need to worry about shrewd, tax-wise ways to give wealth. (The exemption is indexed for inflation; it is $5.25 million in 2013.) They couldn’t be […]
Why a Living Will Is Not Enough for Estate Planning
Every few years the media latches on to a case of someone in a coma or similar medical distress. The family members and doc-tors don’t agree on what the next step should be, generating the conflict, controversy, and story. The lesson from the media always is: Be sure you have a Living Will. The answer […]
A Classic Failed Estate Plan
Louis Feil wasn’t widely-known, but he was a successful, prosperous real estate owner and developer in New York City. He expanded the operation, so the family owns properties well beyond New York. He died in 1999 with the intention of keeping the business in the family. One son, who already was running the business, was […]
