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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January 2007
January 31, 2007 05:10 p.m. The Fed Boosts the Markets It was a good day all around for the stock markets. The day got off to a good start with the GDP report. It revealed stronger-than-expected growth and declining inflation. Consumer spending was high. The only negatives in the report were a sharp declining in […]
Four Estate Planning Mistakes to Avoid
Estate Planning and tax reduction will be returning to the front burner for many people. Congress was unable to pass a permanent estate tax reduction in 2006, and the makeup of the new Congress makes permanent repeal of the estate tax unlikely. Any permanent change in the estate tax exclusion could be less generous than […]
Wealth Replacement Strategies with Trusts
As we discussed in the legacy planning segment, grandparents and parents usually have multiple goals, and it can take some thought to put together a plan that tries to meet all or most of those goals. One tool that can add a lot to a plan is the wealth replacement trust. That is a clever […]
Building the Legacy Plan
What is your legacy plan? Most people are familiar with estate plans. The goals of the estate plan are to ensure that assets are transferred to the people you want in the most efficient manner, that is with the smallest burden in taxes and other expenses. The standard estate plan includes a will, a financial […]
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Private Annuity Trusts: New Rules
Just as last month’s discussion of private annuity trusts was mailed, the government issued proposed regulations restricting the strategy. Though intended to stop transactions considered by the IRS to be abusive of the tax law, the regulations go further and make private annuity trusts generally unattractive. Recall from last month’s discussion that a private annuity […]
New Estate Planning Rules on IRAs and Trusts
The IRS recently made it easier to use a trust with your IRA to protect assets for future generations. You still should use an Estate Planning attorney to ensure things are done properly, but the new ruling adds more certainty than we had in the past. The type of trust people most often want to […]
How Simple Estate Planning Can Avoid Family Dramas
A family drama has been playing out in the pages of major New York newspapers. The stories revolved around 104-year-old Brooke Astor, an heir of perhaps the first “richest man in America,” John Jacob Astor. The story became public when her grandson sought to have his father removed as caregiver and guardian, claiming that his […]
How to Help Grandkids Stay Solvent
In last month’s visit we discussed how to educate children and grandchildren to start them on the road toward financial independence. This month, let’s discuss how to help youngsters who already are in the working world and perhaps have started to dig themselves into that financial hole of high debt in which so many people […]
Asset Protection
Building a Legacy
Business Ownership and Succession
Digital Assets Estate Planning
Estate Planning Basics
Estate Planning Checklist
Estate Planning for Singles
Estate Planning Forms and Documents
Estate Planning Mistakes
Estate Planning Strategies
Estate Tax
Executors and Trustees
Family Limited Partnerships
Gifts and Gift Giving
Grandchildren
Heirs, Beneficiaries, and Children
IRAs & Your Estate
Power of Attorney
Probate
Trusts
Wills and Estate Planning
