Today, it’s not unusual for a family to include children from prior marriages. These “blended” families can create estate planning complications that may lead to challenges in the courts after your death. Fortunately, you can reduce the chances of family squabbles by using estate planning techniques designed to preserve wealth for your heirs in the […]
4 Estate Planning Techniques for Blended Families Read More »
A traditional trust can sometimes create a conflict between the lifetime and remainder beneficiaries. For example, investment strategies that provide growth that benefits remainder beneficiaries can leave lifetime beneficiaries with little or no annual payouts. This makes it more difficult for your estate plan to achieve your objectives and places your trustee in a difficult
A Total Return Unitrust Can Help Maintain Family Harmony Read More »
IRAs and employer-sponsored plans suchas 401(k)s are powerful retirement savings tools, but they also provide valuable estate planning benefits. If you hold a traditional IRA for life, for example, your children or other heirs can stretch out distributions over their lifetimes, maximizing the IRA’s tax-deferred growth and preserving more wealth for the family. If, however,
Apply for a Waiver If You’ve Missed the 60-Day IRA Rollover Deadline Read More »
For a variety of estate planning and asset management purposes, many affluent families hold their assets in trusts, family investment vehicles or charitable foundations. If assets held in this manner include interests in hedge funds, private equity funds or other “unregistered” securities, it’s important to ensure that the entity is qualified to hold such investments.
Don’t Overlook Securities Laws When Planning Your Estate Read More »
Power of Attorney Abuse: What You Can Do About It A financial power of attorney — sometimes called a “power of attorney for property” or a “general power of attorney” — can be a valuable estate planning tool. The main disadvantage is that it’s susceptible to abuse by scam artists, dishonest caretakers or greedy relatives.
Power of Attorney Abuse: What You Can Do About It Read More »
If your estate plan includes one or more trusts, you may have a good reason for wanting to keep them a secret. For example, you may be concerned that, if your children or other beneficiaries knew about the trust, they might spend recklessly or neglect educational or career pursuits. Despite your good intentions, however, the
Keeping a Trust a Secret Could Violate State Law Read More »
If you’re planning on buying a home that you one day wish to pass on to your adult children, a joint purchase can reduce estate tax liability, provided the children have sufficient funds to finance their portion of the purchase. With the gift and estate tax exemption now set at an inflation-adjusted $10 million thanks to
A Joint Home Purchase Can Ease Estate Tax Liability Read More »
If reducing your taxable estate is an important estate planning goal, making lifetime charitable donations can help achieve that goal and benefit your favorite organizations. In addition, by making donations during your lifetime, rather than at death, you can claim income tax deductions. But some of your charitable deductions could be denied if you don’t
Follow IRS Rules to Ensure You Receive Your Charitable Tax Deductions Read More »
S corporations must comply with several strict requirements or risk losing their tax-advantaged status. Among other things, they can have no more than 100 shareholders, can have no more than one class of stock and are permitted to have only certain types of shareholders. In an estate planning context, it’s critical that any trusts that
Only Certain Trusts Can Own S Corporation Stock Read More »
Gifting assets to loved ones is one of the simplest ways of reducing your taxable estate. However, what may not be as simple is determining whether you need to file a gift tax return (Form 709). With the April 17 filing deadline approaching, now is the time to find out an answer. Return Required A
If You Made Gifts Last Year, You May (or May Not) Need to File a Gift Tax Return Read More »
