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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7 Trusts That Could Enhance Your Estate Plan
To optimize your estate plan, you should be able to talk the basics of trusts with an estate planner. Last month, I reviewed key trust terms and concepts and described some basic types of trusts. This month, I describe some specialized trusts that solve particular problems or achieve certain goals. Estate plans of married couples […]
Pros and Cons of SLATs for Married Couples
In recent years, the most talked about tool among estate planners probably is the spousal lifetime access trust, or SLAT. The major appeal of a SLAT is a person can continue to benefit from valuable assets while shielding them from estate and gift taxes. It’s a way to hedge against the lifetime estate and gift […]
Here’s What You Need to Know About 7 Widely Used Trusts
Trusts aren’t reserved for the estate plans of the very wealthy. Estate planners frequently recommend at least one trust for most estate plans. Most people should consider having trusts in their estate plan, and you want to make good decisions about which trusts, if any, to have in your estate plan and what the structures […]
How Innovative Modern Trusts Improve Your Estate Plan
Trusts have been around since at least medieval times, but their details change over time. Recent innovations can make your trusts more powerful and effective. These innovations apply to a couple of features that frequently are treated routinely: the definition of a trustee’s powers and the selection of the trustee. The first step is to […]
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Some Little-Known Risks of Using Safe Deposit Boxes
Many items wouldn’t be kept in safe deposit boxes if more people knew the facts, and that would be fine with the banks. Safe deposit boxes are used routinely without much knowledge about the potential consequences to the users and their loved ones. One issue is how safe items in the boxes really are. Safe […]
Interest Rate Changes Affect Your Estate Plan
Interest rates are going to be higher for longer than investors expected at the start of the year, and that means estate planning strategies should be reassessed. The benefits of different estate planning strategies change with interest rates. When interest rates are higher, the payoffs from some strategies increase while other strategies lose some of […]
Hidden Flaws That Frequently Mess Up Estate Plans
Many estate plans aren’t as solid as the estate owners and their families believe. Key defects are widespread. The imperfect estate plans either won’t deliver the expected results or meeting their goals will cost significantly more than anticipated. The good news is that a deep dive into the details of a plan and a family […]
What You Should Know About Family Limited Partnerships
The family limited partnership (FLP) is a favorite tool of many estate planners. But it isn’t appropriate for every estate, and precautions are in order when it is appropriate. FLPs became a popular tool when the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption was much lower, and many more people had to worry about estate taxes. […]
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Estate Tax
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Family Limited Partnerships
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Grandchildren
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