Perhaps the largest number of people who may benefit from asset protection planning are those who are at most mildly concerned about asset protection issues, or not even aware of the need for such planning.
Your estate plan should certainly be revised, if you have gotten married or divorced.
According to a recent Gallup poll, a little over half (54%) of adults in America don’t have a will.
Preparing an estate plan for managing and distributing your assets in the case of death is one of the most important steps you could take to protect and provide for loved ones.
A person named as a transfer on death (TOD) beneficiary for an account will receive the assets held in it when the account owner dies.
Since we’re all going to die (yes, even those of us who are still in our 20s!), we might as well make things easier for the loved ones who, along with grieving our loss, will have to deal with the financial and logistical pieces of our lives.
In this article, we will address two terms which some people use interchangeably, but which are very different things: living trusts and estate plans.
As soon as you are an adult, you should have an estate plan in place.
Completing an estate inventory can be one of the most challenging aspects of being the executor of an estate.
Some people draft wills or trusts to ensure that the loved ones they will eventually leave behind own a piece of the properties the former will be leaving behind in case of their death.
When you set up your estate plan it is important to coordinate the legal planning documents that you or you and your attorney create with the document provided by your retirement account custodian and/or your life insurance carrier called a ‘Designation of Beneficiary.’
One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make when creating an estate plan is which estate planning law firm to work with.
While it’s never fun or pleasant to think about what will happen to them if the worst should happen to us, it’s very important to consider how we can ensure that they are well cared-for when and if we are no longer able to care for them ourselves.
Who’s going to inherit on the death of one of the re-marrieds? Will this be the surviving spouse? If so, where will those inherited monies go on the second-to-die’s death?
When it comes to owning property in two different states, you may wonder how to manage these in your estate plans.
My dad is investing in cryptocurrency! I know nothing about it and, frankly, I am not interested in learning. I think it is a passing fad. When he dies and I am responsible for the distribution of his estate to my siblings, do I need to address the crypto?
Leaving behind a huge tax bill for your heirs with the stretch IRA scuttled? Here are some ways around it as lawmakers consider an updated SECURE Act.
In order to give your brother half of the assets in the IRA, you will have to liquidate a portion of the account and pay the taxes on the liquidated amount if it’s a traditional IRA.
Once more hesitant to plan ahead, clients in today’s environment are much more proactive and willing to take action in the near term, rather than waiting and risking having to pay higher taxes down the line.
