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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Estate Planning to Secure Your Digital Assets
In just a few years digital assets sprouted from an emerging concern in Estate Planning to one of the more important issues to address. We’re moving from a paper world to a digital world, and many people don’t realize how important digital assets are to their lives or how valuable they are. They also don’t […]
The Really Personal Issues of Estate Planning
Estate Planning discussions often are mostly about wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and the different clauses and terms that could be contained in each. The point to all the strategies and technical discussions often is lost. That point, or points, should be the subject of the early discussions in the estate planning process, and it […]
Why is the Power of Attorney an Essential Estate Planning Tool
Many people use the last part of the year to put their financial houses in order. Yet, one move many overlook is to create or revise their powers of attorney. You need more than one POA, and they are an essential part of every estate plan, regardless of the value of your estate. You should […]
Estate Planning to Ensure Gifts are Tax Free
Many people who make Estate Planning gifts are giving away assets that don’t have obvious market prices. Because the gift tax is based on the value of an asset, these people have to be careful. When the donor places a value on an asset and makes the maximum tax-free gift, the IRS later can step […]
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Estate Planning Shrewd Gift-Giving Strategies
Regular people have been left out of most Estate Planning discussions this year. Estate planners and financial media are pounding the table for people to give away a lot of money by Dec. 31 because of the scheduled end of the $5.12 million estate and gift tax exemption on Jan. 1, 2013. If the expiration […]
Grasping the Risks of Estate Planning Neglect
Many people have their estate plans on the backburner. They know the estate tax changed a lot in recent years, is scheduled to change next year, and after that probably will change again. Many believe that since today’s generous estate tax exemption exceeds the value of their estate, they don’t need to worry about an […]
Fixing What’s Wrong With Most Estate Planning Trusts
Many estate plans needlessly and unintentionally pit family members against each other. Old-fashioned, out-of-date trust formulas are the problem. The issues easily could be avoided by using some modern Estate Planning trust strategies instead of relying on what used to be tried-and-true trust provisions. Trusts once primarily were the province of only the wealthy. Now, […]
Estate Planning Strategies for Asset Ownership
When your estate planning aims to help a grandchild financially, especially for college, an important question is: Who should own the assets? In fact, answering this question can be harder than determining how much money you should set aside and how it should be invested. Deciding who should own the property means looking at several […]
