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

Trusts

How to Update Old Trusts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

New legal tools are available to help many families stuck with out-of-date trusts. For years I’ve warned against traditional trusts that make fixed distributions or distributions only from income. Inflation and the twenty year decline in interest rates and dividends have crippled the benefits from these trusts. Beneficiaries are helpless because the trusts are irrevocable […]

Estate Planning Strategies, Trusts

Estate Planning Strategies to Help Heirs While Protecting Wealth

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Incentive trusts and protective trusts are all the rage. Many people want to be generous with succeeding generations – now or in their wills – but they want some assurance the wealth won’t be wasted. People are concerned that inheriting wealth might reduce an heir’s work ethic. They don’t want the money to disappear in […]

529 College Saving Plans, Estate Planning

Estate Planning: How to Make the Most of 529 Plans

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Section 529 college savings plans rapidly became a popular Estate Planning tool, especially for those who want to help their grandchildren. Each state now offers at least one 529 plan. A 529 plan allows a donor to give up to five years’ of tax-free gifts ($55,000) in one year. The donor can get the money […]

Executors and Trustees, Trusts, Wills and Estate Planning

How Bad Trustee and Executor Choices in your Will and Trusts Can Destroy Estate Planning

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

NFL superstar Johnny Unitas passed away in September, 2002, and his estate has been a mess since. Unitas’s families from two marriages are at odds. His son and namesake is fighting to get the company father and son ran back from the estate’s executors. The executors are Unitas’s longtime accountant and attorney. Unitas and John, […]

Family Limited Partnerships

Estate Planning: Are Family Limited Partnerships in Danger?

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Has the IRS nailed the coffin shut on family limited partnerships? The IRS has been challenging FLPs in courts for years, until recently with little success. Two recent court decisions, however, disallowed some FLPs and caused at least a few advisors to caution taxpayers against setting up new FLPs at least until the rules are […]

Family Limited Partnerships, Trusts

How to Fix Broken Estate Planning Strategies involving Family Limited Partnerships and Trusts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

The usefulness of many estate planning vehicles lasts less than a generation. A host of estate planning strategies can slash taxes and help preserve family wealth. These include charitable trusts, family limited partnerships, and irrevocable family trusts. Events don’t always unfold as planned, and over time changes would be helpful. Unfortunately, most good estate planning […]

Estate Planning Basics

Estate Planning Nuts and Bolts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Every estate is different. Even your next door neighbor or colleague at work is going to have some issues that are different from yours. Yet, there are key principles and strategies that apply to almost every estate plan. There also are common Estate Planning mistakes you should avoid. Since this is the time of year […]

Annuities, Trusts

Estate Planning: Charitable Annuity vs. Charitable Trust

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Charitable Remainder Trusts get a lot of attention from estate planners. Yet, they might not be the best option for many estate owners. There is the less-known charitable gift annuity to consider. Each strategy shelters appreciated assets from capital gains taxes, reduces current income taxes, provides income for life or for a period of years, […]