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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Simple Strategies for Effective Estate Planning
Estate planning can be much easier than people realize, and simpler than many estate planners make it. Too often, people delay creating or updating their estate plans to avoid confusion about a potentially steep learning curve for novel terms and strategies. Fortunately, few of us need to learn about grantor-retained annuity trusts, intentionally defective trusts, […]
All the Ways You Can (Legally) 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 […]
3 Trusts Married Couples Should Consider for Their Wills
Trusts have fallen out of favor as part of the wills of married couples, and that could be a mistake for many. Trusts created in wills are known as testamentary trusts. The portability of an unused lifetime estate and gift tax exemption from one spouse to another is the main reason testamentary trusts are used […]
The Four Ways You Can Make Tax-Free Gifts
Gift giving is an essential strategy in many estate plans. When done properly, gifts reduce lifetime income taxes and reduce or eliminate estate and gift taxes. Through gifts, you help loved ones today, and see the benefits of that help, instead of having them wait to inherit. To optimize gifts, know how to minimize gift […]
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Your Home and Your Estate Plan: Sell It or Hold It?
Current income taxes aren’t the only factor to consider when deciding whether to sell a longtime residence or hold it for the rest of your life. In the February 2024 issue, we discussed how a gain from the sale of a home is taxed when sold by the owner who used it as a principal […]
Don’t Burden Your Heirs with an Inherited Traditional IRA
Many American retirees are making significant mistakes with their traditional IRAs by planning to leave the accounts to their children or other heirs. Inheriting a traditional IRAs never was a great deal and is significantly less appealing to heirs now. An IRA owner can take actions to increase the value of inheriting the assets. Most […]
Discover the Best Type of Trust for Your Heirs
One of the most difficult issues in many estate plans is deciding how to leave money to heirs. Many estate owners are concerned about what will happen to the wealth in the next generation and the effects the inheritance will have on their heirs. Wealth is accumulated and preserved for the next generation at least […]
7 Steps to Develop Your Best Estate Plan
Creating or updating an estate plan can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of pieces to a plan and decisions to be made. That’s why many people procrastinate and don’t create or update their plans, though they know it’s important. To develop your best estate plan, I recommend breaking […]
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Estate Tax
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IRAs & Your Estate
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Probate
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Wills and Estate Planning
