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 Strategies to Give and Protect Wealth
Many people know why making gifts is part of most estate plans. Yet, they hesitate to make the gifts, because they see potential pitfalls. They fear that the gifts might be spent unwisely or wasted. The donee could squander the assets on gambling, substance abuse, or other activities. Or the wealth could be well-managed for […]
How to Create the IRS Audit-Proof Estate
Planning an estate and implementing the plan don’t end the job. To meet your goals, take another step and ensure that the estate will prevail in an audit. Few people realize that the audit rate on estate tax returns is far higher than the rate on income tax returns. The greater an estate’s value, the […]
Is a Perpetual Trust for You?
Recent laws are making it easier to use dynasty trusts to make wealth last for multiple generations. Not too long ago creating a dynasty trust that lasted for generations was difficult. Those of us who took Estate & Trusts in law school tried to learn the intricacies of something called the Law Against Perpetuities, complex […]
Estate Planning to Leave a Legacy
In our past discussions of Estate Planning, I often have emphasized that estate planning is the process of building a legacy. When people think estate planning is about money, property, and death, they tend to ignore the process. When they realize it is about values and other elements of building and living a legacy, they […]
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When You Don’t Prepare for Estate Planning – The Importance of Documents
Without a letter of instructions and good organization, the heirs are forced to engage in the old-fashioned property and document search. Sometimes it is comical. Sometimes things get ugly. Always a lot of time and effort is wasted. Estate planners tell stories of important documents that never are found and of other documents that are […]
IRAs for Grandkids
Grandparents can give a big boost to the finances of their grandchildren who earned money from summer jobs. They can help make contributions to a Roth IRA and begin building a tax-free nest egg. A contribution to a Roth IRA can be made by anyone who has earned income and whose adjusted gross income is […]
Having the Last Word – The Letter of Final Instructions
Most estate plans are missing a key ingredient. Too many estate planners do not recommend it, and it isn’t even mentioned in many estate planning discussions. One reason might be that, despite its importance, the document is not legally binding on anyone. This document can clear up a lot of issues. It can save time […]
Some Classic Uses of Trusts
Trusts have been an essential estate planning tool for centuries. Once used only by the very wealthy, today trusts are widely used by the non-wealthy. Longer lives, more widespread wealth, second marriages, and blended families all cause greater interest in trusts. That is even before considering tax reduction strategies. Trust use is so widespread that […]
