Common sense goes a long way in every aspect of life, and it is vital to the process of estate planning as well. You just need to understand the asset transfer vehicles that are available to you and utilize them in an intelligent and well-timed manner. Depending on the specific details of your estate and the dynamics of your family, you may find that the best strategies for you are rather simple ...
We have highlighted the inheritance planning strategy of gift giving previously, but there is an exemption that is often overlooked that we would like to look at today. To provide some context the purpose of giving gifts from an estate planning perspective is to reduce the value of your estate in an effort to limit or eliminate your heirs’ estate tax exposure. On a personal level, when you give ...
When the value of your estate exceeds the estate tax exclusion amount your estate planning objective is to rearrange your assets to create space and bring the value of your estate under that exclusion. Giving gifts is one way of doing this, but of course the IRS is well aware of this so there is the gift tax to contend with. However, there are financial instruments that can be used to facilitate ...
There are those who proceed from the standpoint that estate planning is not something that younger people need to be concerned about, but the matter does not revolve exclusively around age. It is true that the possibility of death increases as you get older, but people of all ages die every day. The purpose of estate planning is to make preparations for the well being of your family if you were to ...
Estate planning involves financial projections, and this can only be done with a reasonable modicum of accuracy when there is some kind of consistency within the numerical pattering you are working with. However, the recent wild swings in the estate tax parameters year to year has made estate planning quite challenging because what makes sense on December 31st of a given year may not be ...
When you are involved in a business partnership and you are planning your estate, you have to consider the matter of succession. Your share in the business may well be one of your most significant assets. But when you pass on, how is your share carved out and passed along to your heirs without negatively impacting your partners and the viability of the business? This may sound rather challenging, ...
Efficiency is the name of the game when you are engaged in estate planning, and when you choose to execute a will as your instrument of transfer you may be choosing an inefficient route. A will has to pass through the legal process of probate, and this is when the probate or surrogate court supervises the administration of your estate. Probate is not a bad thing in many cases because some estates ...
When you are planning for the more active segment of your retirement years through to the end of your life you have little choice but to proceed with a good bit of speculation. It is easy to be cavalier and talk about planning for all of the eventualities of aging as though it is a simple matter of moving numbers around. But depending on where you are in your life now, how your latter years ...
Planning your estate is not something that you complete with one single action. It is an ongoing process, and every time something significant happens in your life, it will probably affect your estate plan in some way. For this reason it is important to schedule a visit with your estate planning attorney every time one of these life altering events takes place. One such occasion is a change of ...
When you give gifts to the people who you would be leaving an inheritance to after you pass away you remove the value of these gifts from the overall value of your estate, and that is going to provide you with estate tax efficiency. Of course there is the gift tax that stands in the way of simply giving away all of your estate before you die to avoid the estate tax. However, there are gift tax ...
Estate planning is challenging in many ways, but it is also a very nice feeling to be able to make a difference in the lives of your loved ones and perhaps even your favorite charities and/or non-profit organizations. You may be sitting in your favorite chair watching a Syracuse basketball game thinking back on all of the great times you had there as an undergraduate at the Carrier Dome and decide ...
One of the big changes that the new year is going to bring along that has an impact on estate planning is the return of the estate tax. One of the provisions of the sweeping tax cuts of 2001 was a repeal of the estate tax in 2010, but it will be returning again in 2011. This in and of itself is highly relevant, but in addition to its mere reappearance, the estate tax exclusion amount in 2011 will ...
When you evaluate your estate and recognize the fact that you are in a position to provide inheritances for your loved ones that will have life changing impact, you invariably feel a sense of profound responsibility. It is not as easy as simply handing over a large sum of money and letting the rest take care of itself. Having no financial motivations in life can prevent people from reaching their ...
In 2011 the estate tax is back after a one year temporary repeal, and the thing about it that can take a lot of people by surprise is the new exclusion amount. In 2009 the exclusion was $3.5 million, so if the total overall value of your estate did not exceed this number it was not subject to the estate tax. However, in 2011 this figure has been shrunk down to just $1 million, and the maximum rate ...
Most people are aware of the fact that those who serve in the armed forces for at least twenty years are eligible to receive a retirement pension. This reward has always been a good recruiting tool because an individual could choose to join the military right out of high school, gain an education and job experience while serving, and then retire before the age of forty earning a pension while ...