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

Digital Assets Estate Planning, Estate Planning

Estate Planning for Your Digital Assets

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Changes are afoot in how digital assets figure into your estate plan. For years, great uncertainty existed in the handling of digital assets such as accounts for email, social media, banking, investments, photo and data storage, web sites, and more. We last discussed these matters in our June 2014 visit, but already a major change […]

Estate Planning Strategies

Buildng the Complete Estate Planning Strategy

May 1, 2015

Publication: Retirement Watch, Retirement Watch Weekly

Many people think they have estate planing strategies but really don’t. I’m not talking about the many people who haven’t done any estate planning and don’t have even a basic will. I’m talking about people who have taken action on their estate planning and yet have plans that are woefully incomplete. There is more to […]

Estate Planning Mistakes

A Frequantly Overlooked Key Issue in Estate Planning

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Celebrities and the wealthy often provide important financial lessons for the rest of us. Often, the lessons are more important for the rest of us, because the wealthy usually have enough assets to over-come the losses from their mistakes. For others, one or two critical mistakes can severely reduce financial security. The latest important lesson […]