Estate planning is often viewed as a purely financial endeavor. However, there is a health care component as well if you want to be comprehensively prepared for all of the eventualities of aging. It would be ideal if we all passed on without ever having to experience any gradual decline, but unfortunately it doesn’t always … [Read More]
Educational Gifts
Estate planning involves using legal experience and expertise to make sure that your wishes become a reality, but there is some planning that needs to be done before this is accomplished. Formulation of those wishes is not something that generally happens overnight, and depending on the size and scope of your estate and the individual … [Read More]
Simple Estate Planning Tools
The different strategies that can be advisable considering the specifics of your estate are many and varied, and some combinations of them can be somewhat complex. But there are many simple, tried and true methods that can be used to get assets into the hands of your heirs quickly and efficiently because the enable the … [Read More]
Guardianship & Conservatorship
Comprehensive, holistic estate planning takes every possibility into account and this includes addressing the realities of aging in addition to the distribution of assets after death. The fact is that senior citizens are the most rapidly growing segment of American society, and people are indeed living longer than ever before. It is not the most … [Read More]
Estate Planning, Priorities, and Procrastination
We are all well aware of the fact that we have certain ongoing responsibilities in life, and we invariably prioritize them in a logical manner. One of the keys to doing this effectively is to recognize the sum total of these responsibilities, and some of them are very evident and others may be less so. … [Read More]
Advance Health Care Directives & HIPAA
Advance health care directives are important components to your estate plan, and what they do is record your medical preferences so that your wishes are known should you be unable to communicate them at some point in the future. With a living will you state the medical procedures that you would be willing to accept … [Read More]
Tax-Free Gifts
It’s easy to get kind of jaded about the commercial nature of the end-of-year holidays, and the idea of looking at the calendar and recognizing that it is time to shop for gifts can sometimes seem like more of a chore and less of a joy. But when the day comes when you are actually … [Read More]
Should Estate Tax Be Permanently Repealed?
One of the big stories in the field of estate planning in 2010 was the temporary repeal of the estate tax due to the tax reform laws that were passed in 2001. This is the only year that the tax has not been levied since it was first introduced in 1916 and it is returning … [Read More]
Your Pets & Your Estate
When you are planning your estate you are generally dealing with things that don’t have to be tended to on an ongoing basis. There are some exceptions of course, and these would include entities like businesses, charitable giving instruments, and trusts, but these things don’t need to be taken for a walk, fed daily, or … [Read More]
A Will For Every Purpose
It could be said that end of life planning contains three distinct components: the physical, the financial, and the philosophical. You can state your wishes concerning these matters by drawing up three different wills. Standard Will When most people hear the term “will” as it applies to estate planning they are going to think about … [Read More]
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