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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Good Estate Planning Is Not All About the Money
Estate Planning isn’t all about the money. At least, it’s not if you want the plan to be successful. Long-time readers know I’ve been saying for years that estate planning isn’t all about taxes. You need an estate plan even when the estate isn’t likely to be hit with federal estate taxes. You also need […]
Estate Planning for Grandparents Stepping in as Parents
A quiet trend in the U.S. is that a growing number of parents serve as the primary parents for their grandchildren. The Census Bureau started tabulating this information in 2000, and since then the numbers have grown. The 2010 census showed that 3.1 million children are living without their biological parents, and 59% of them […]
How to Avoid the Worst Estate Plan Mistakes
Taxes no longer are the main focus of Estate Planning, and they really never should have been. The broad goals of an estate plan should be to avoid chaos and discord among beneficiaries; to avoid or minimize probate; to protect assets from mismanagement by the children; and to protect assets from creditors and others. Many […]
An Unusual Asset Protection Strategy
There are a lot of ways to protect your assets from potential creditors. The key to success for the most part is to take action before the creditors claims are real. If you wait, as too many people do, most of the actions you can take will be viewed as a fraud on the creditors […]
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Estate Planning to Protect Assets, Heirs with a QTIP Trust
The marital deduction is a widely used, but often misused, Estate Planning tool. It’s powerful, but it also can create problems and headaches when not used properly. Here’s how to achieve your goals while avoiding the minefield of potential marital deduction problems. The marital deduction is simple and has two advantages. Under the estate […]
The Importance of Updating Your Trusts for Estate Planning
Trusts are one of the most important Estate Planning tools. They’re not only for the very wealthy, as we’ve discussed in past visits. When everything isn’t done right and kept up-to-date, however, a trust can cause more problems than it overcomes, especially for heirs. Financial advisors are spending a lot of time resolving problems with […]
What Happens to Your Debts on Death?
There’s been a lot of attention lately to the issue of what happens to a person’s debts after he dies. It seems there are firms that specialize in collecting the debts of the deceased, often by telling survivors they need to pay and often by not being completely honest. We’ll have more detail in a […]
Estate Planning – The Giving, Asset-Shifting Opportunity
A unique wealth and Estate Planning opportunity presents itself to many people in 2012. It could be the last year for such an opportunity, so take advantage if it applies to you. A deal was reached in Washington in December 2010 to reduce estate and gift taxes for 2011 and 2012. Among other things, a […]
