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.
My mother passed, and she was an administrator of my grandfather’s estate and the inheritances. The estate accumulated quite a bit of back taxes over the years. Will the IRS put a lien on that estate as well as hers to retrieve funds?
Adult children typically don’t have to pay their parents’ bills. However, there are exceptions. Even when a child doesn’t have to pay directly, debt could reduce what they inherit.
The ‘HEMS’ (health, education, maintenance, support) standard in estate planning is used to guide trustees in how/when they should release funds to a beneficiary.
Executors can use additional information in administering estates, especially if the executor is unrelated to the decedent.
Non-probate assets are those assets which do not go into an estate when the owner dies.
Most people should have a will, but it’s rarely the most significant estate planning document an individual holds.
If a loved one asks you to be the executor of their estate, think carefully before you take on this responsibility.
Life estates can provide effective means to create joint ownership of property, avoid probate and transfer property after death without incurring gift taxes.
My wife died and left a bank account with no beneficiary. The bank tells me I have to go through probate. I inherited everything else. What do I have to do?
There are many ways to pass property on to children, including gifting the family home to them while you are still alive, bequeathing it to the children upon your passing, or selling the residence to your heirs.
One of the most useful estate planning tools is a trust, which can be used to create a legacy of wealth and protecting assets. One question to consider when creating one, is whether a grantor or non-grantor trust is more appropriate. A non-grantor trust is any trust that is not a grantor trust.
Good estate planning must consider more than what you want to happen to your property and for your beneficiaries. It also must consider what you intentionally want to avoid happening.
Locking up certain important documents and valuables in a bank vault could turn into a headache for you or your heirs.
If you’re merely dipping your toe in cryptocurrency, it can be hard to imagine your crypto as something worth talking to an estate attorney about. But that $100 in fun money could grow to a significant percentage of your total investments, sometimes overnight.
The probate process gets a bad reputation, but it’s the reality many families will face. It is a process that can function well for some small estates.
