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

When You Don’t Prepare for Estate Planning – The Importance of Documents

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Without a letter of instructions and good organization, the heirs are forced to engage in the old-fashioned property and document search. Sometimes it is comical. Sometimes things get ugly. Always a lot of time and effort is wasted. Estate planners tell stories of important documents that never are found and of other documents that are […]

Trusts

Some Classic Uses of Trusts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Trusts have been an essential estate planning tool for centuries. Once used only by the very wealthy, today trusts are widely used by the non-wealthy. Longer lives, more widespread wealth, second marriages, and blended families all cause greater interest in trusts. That is even before considering tax reduction strategies. Trust use is so widespread that […]

Estate Planning Checklist

Eight Key Estate Planning Questions

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Estate Planning is not about reducing estate taxes. That always was the case, but few people realized the importance of the non-tax factors until the 2001 tax law began the phase out of the estate tax. Every estate plan, regardless of the estate’s size, needs to address certain issues. Ignore these issues, and your heirs […]

Trusts

11 Strategies to Handle Trusts Better

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Trusts no longer are just for the very wealthy. Many families use trusts for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, trusts often can result in significant problems for loved ones long after the trust creator is gone. Problems include excess costs, poor investments, low payouts, and unresponsiveness to the family’s needs. In many states, beneficiaries are […]

Asset Protection

The New Asset Protection Rules for Estate Planning

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

A new bankruptcy law is making its way through Congress this spring. It makes major changes in the protection afforded to some assets. Asset protection strategies need to be reviewed in light of the new law. The bulk of the law addresses the bankruptcy process. In general, it is harder for someone whose disposable income […]

Estate Tax, Income Tax Planning in Retirement

Using and Misusing the Marital Deduction for Estate Tax Planning

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

The marital deduction is key to most estate plans of married couples. It can wipe out the entire estate tax liability. But misuse of the marital deduction can create a larger long-term tax bill or cause non-tax problems. Let’s look at how to use the marital deduction and avoid misusing it. The estate tax is […]

Estate Planning Basics

Estate Planning: The Essentials

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Estate Planning need not be as complicated as many people make it. Sophisticated tools are needed by the very wealthy, business owners, those with children from more than one marriage, and others with special needs. For most of us, a good estate plan is fairly straightforward. We need only the basics. Most estate plans can […]

Estate Planning Strategies

Popular Strategy Ruins Estate Planning

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Many people naively subvert their estate plans, creating nightmares for their heirs and bonuses for the taxman. The situation is easy to cause, but also is easy to fix. The problem is that few people realize the importance of the wording of the legal title to their assets. Yet, this simple decision, often made without […]