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:

• What is Estate Planning – A Comprehensive Overview

Estate Planning Forms and Documents, Power of Attorney

Power of Attorney: The Most Important Document in Your Estate Plan

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

The financial Power of Attorney (POA) could be the most important document in your estate plan. Yet, many people don’t have one. And many people who do have a power of attorney didn’t give it much thought and have inadequate documents. Adverse results can range from bills not being paid on time to trusted people […]

Estate Planning Strategies, Executors and Trustees, Heirs, Beneficiaries, and Children

Managing the Key Players in Your Estate Planning Strategy (Your Heirs, Beneficiaries, Executors, and Trustees)

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

In last week’s story, we reviewed the major potential “surrogates” in estate plans (the agents, trustees, executors, and others). Today we offer some pointers for reducing problems you may face with surrogate designations. Know all the surrogates you designated Review financial accounts, insurance policies, and estate planning documents to be sure you know who currently […]

Executors and Trustees

The #1 Rule to Follow in Your Estate Planning: Executor and Trustee Designations

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

There’s a time bomb ticking in many estate plans, possibly even in yours. You likely won’t even know if the bomb goes off… or, for that matter, how big the explosion will be. You see, the “bomb” is the person — or people — you name to act for you. Whether they act during your […]

Estate Planning Mistakes

The 2 Most Common Causes of Estate Planning Failures

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Many estate plans don’t produce the results the owners intended… Which is too bad — because most of these failures are preventable. The failures usually don’t spring from the tax strategies or language in the will. The failures most often result from the human side, or soft side, of Estate Planning. There are two main […]