Many people harbor misconceptions about trusts. One of them is the idea that they are only useful for very wealthy people that have complex estates. This is a half-truth, because there are irrevocable trusts that high net worth individuals use to address estate tax exposure. However, irrevocable trusts are also utilized by people that are … [Read More]
Life Insurance Can Be Part of a Creative Estate Plan
Everyone is well aware of the fact that life insurance can be used to bolster the inheritances that you will be leaving to your loved ones. This being stated, there are some other utilizations that can provide targeted solutions, and we will look at some of them in this post. Succession Planning for Business Partners … [Read More]
How Do You Keep Your Estate Planning Decisions Confidential?
We recently reported about the closing of the intestate estate of the musical artist Prince. He passed away in 2016, and the estate was stalled in probate for six years in large part because of the fact that there was a dispute about the degree of estate tax responsibility. You may have read about the … [Read More]
Can You Give Advance Inheritances to Get Around Estate Taxes?
You pay many different types of taxes throughout your life, including income taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, sales tax, gas and hospitality taxes, and on and on. Since you are taxed at every turn while you are living, you would hope that the IRS will leave your estate alone. Unfortunately, if you have been … [Read More]
Nursing Home Costs Can Consume Your Legacy
As estate planning lawyers, we help people facilitate effective postmortem asset transfers, but there is another financial element. You have to preserve your wealth to protect your legacy, and there is a looming threat to it in the form of long-term care costs. Aging and Living Assistance It is easy to think that statistics do … [Read More]
Estate Planning: Do You Need More Than a Will?
A lot of people think estate planning equals the creation of a will, and that’s the long and short of it. Why would you need anything else when a simple will can be used to express the way that you want the slices of your pie to be distributed after you are gone? This logic … [Read More]
Why Would I Use an Irrevocable Trust?
There are many different legal devices that can be used when you are planning your estate. A lot of people do not understand this, and this leads them to the belief that they can simply use do-it-yourself downloads to create their own wills. In reality, your plan should be constructed to meet your specific needs. … [Read More]
Aid and Attendance Veterans Pension Can Defray Long-Term Care Costs
The people that make sacrifices to serve in the United States military take risks, and they also receive certain rewards. One of them is a retirement pension for careerists that served for at least 20 years, but there is another pension benefit that flies under the radar. Aid and Attendance Pension Certain wartime veterans that … [Read More]
Special Needs Planning Questions Answered
What is special needs planning? In the field of estate planning, steps can be taken to provide for people that are in unique situations. This applies to the facilitation of inheritances to people with disabilities. Why can’t you just name someone with a disability in a simple will? You can certainly do this, but there … [Read More]
What Are the Responsibilities of the Probate Court?
As estate planning and elder law attorneys, we are intimately connected to the probate court. One of the major functions of the court is to provide supervision when an estate is being administered. If you use a last will to express your final wishes, you name an executor in the document. This estate representative would … [Read More]
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