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

Estate Planning Strategies

Handling The Toughest Estate Problem: The Family Home

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

The most difficult part of an estate plan can be the family home or a second home. Often the property is a large part of the estate’s value. It also cannot be divided among the heirs. They either sell the property or share it. But the emotions surrounding a family property probably are the biggest […]

Estate Planning Strategies, Trusts

Strategies to Protect Your Estate Plan

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

What’s the biggest problem with most estate plans? Often it is not taxes or cash flow. Many times the biggest problem is the trustee or executor that was appointed to carry out the estate plan. Trusts usually are a key part of the estate plan. How the trustee administers the trust determines the quality of […]

Estate Planning, Estate Planning Strategies

How to Prepare Your Financial Emergency Kit

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

You might have solid investments and a good estate plan. But your financial planning isn’t complete without a financial emergency kit. An ideal time to put one together is when you are working on your estate plan. A financial emergency kit is a set of tools that can keep a difficult time from becoming much […]

Grandchildren

How to Teach Grandkids Wealth Management

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

It is nice to give wealth to grandchildren. But an even better gift can be to teach them how to multiply and manage their wealth the rest of their lives. Youngsters today are more financially savvy than any prior generation. They own investments, have such high discretionary income that retailers pitch to youngsters, and even […]

Trusts

The Modern Way To Give: The Total Return Trust

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Too many trusts these days are set up the old-fashioned way. I see them all the time. The result is that all the beneficiaries of the trust are short-changed, and they often end up angry at each other, the trustee, and the grantor. A once-generous endowment eventually becomes a legacy of discontent. Suppose you want […]

Income Tax Planning in Retirement, IRAs & Your Estate

The Best Way to Structure IRA Gifts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

An IRA often is one of the largest assets in an estate. Tax laws make it one of the most complicated. That’s why IRA planning is a critical element of many estate plans. If you have a large IRA are considering charitable gifts as part of your estate plan, review carefully the alternatives to find […]

Income Tax Planning in Retirement, Trusts

IRS Approved Tax Benefits for Charitable Remainder Trusts

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Taxpayers can get great income and estate tax benefits from one strategy – without being aggressive. The IRS recently said it would stop fighting a strategy that tax advisors have advocated for years. Even better, as a result of the bull market this tool is ideal for more people. If you’ve been reading Retirement Watch […]

Asset Protection, IRAs & Your Estate, Trusts

How to Protect Your IRA

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Would you spend a minute or less deciding the fate of your most valuable asset? Do you want a mutual fund or other financial institution to make the decision? Most people actually spend less than a minute designating the beneficiaries for their IRAs or other qualified retirement plans. And they give little or no thought […]