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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When to Use Estate Planning Software to Write the Plan Yourself
Technology makes many things easier and less expensive. A question many people face is whether to prepare their estate plans using do-it-yourself soft- ware or websites. Estate plan preparation software for individuals is nothing new. It has been around since the early days of the personal computer and went online as the internet boomed. Many […]
New Estate Planning Rule: Avoid an Electronic Mess
Few things these days do more to increase the cost of and delay the time it takes to administer an estate than leaving an electronic mess for the executor and heirs to clean up. Yet, that’s what numerous people do by not incorporating their digital assets and electronic lives in their estate plans. Many people […]
Surprising Fact About Wills You Must Know
There’s a lot more to know about wills than many people realize. The additional knowledge can result in a better estate plan and make it easier to talk with your estate planner. Let’s first review some basic terms and concepts. A will is a written statement of your instructions and intentions regarding your estate. The […]
All the Ways You Can Avoid Probate (Part 2)
In our last edition of Retirement Watch Weekly, I shared some estate planning tips on how to avoid probate. Let’s look at some more ways today… A transfer on death provision (TOD) is another approach to avoid probate. Most financial institutions now have transfer on death provisions in their new account applications and allow the […]
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All the Ways To Legally Avoid Probate: Estate Planning Pro Tip
Avoiding probate is often a major estate planning goal, but most people don’t learn all the strategies available. In probate, a deceased person’s estate is administered and distributed according to state and local law. The process ensures debts are paid and legal title to assets passes as the decedent wanted, or according to state law […]
How and When to Use Reverse Estate Planning Strategies
Most estate planning discussions assume assets flow in only one direction, from the older generation to younger generations. That focus neglects some opportunities to increase family after-tax wealth. It is not unusual for adult children to help care for their parents or at least have more wealth than their parents. If the parents won’t use […]
All the Ways You Can Avoid Probate
Avoiding probate often is a major estate planning goal, but most people don’t learn all the strategies available. In probate, a deceased person’s estate is administered and distributed according to state and local law. The process ensures debts are paid and legal title to assets passes as the decedent wanted, or according to state law […]
7 Reasons Life Insurance Should Be in Your Estate Plan
Life insurance used to be an essential element of most estate plans, but it hasn’t been for about 20 years. Important changes, however, make it time for many people to give serious thought to including life insurance in their estate plans. In this article, I’m talking about permanent life insurance, not term life insurance. There’s […]
