Estate Planning
2010 Estate Planning Mess
14 years ago
2010 has begun and we have entered the twilight zone of estate taxes.
What will congress do now?
Nothing — I originally wouldn’t have given this one much chance, but now I see this as a distinct possibilty
Reinstitute 2009 exemptions retroactively (may be unconstitutional)
Reinstitute 2009 [...]
Safe Deposit Box No-Nos
16 years ago
It goes without saying that a safe deposit box should be used to store things of importance.
For example
Copy of your will
Copy of insurance policies
Titles to your house and cars
Detailed list of bank and brokerage accounts, CDs and credit cards
Marriage license / Divorce decree
Expensive, [...]
Pricing real estate
17 years ago
Here are two great sites for getting quick estimates of real estate values. This can be very helpful before talking to a realtor or in helping to get a handle on estate size. Trulia also has started creating heat maps which allow you to see visually which geographic areas are hot (real estate [...]
Grantor Credit Shelter Trust
17 years ago
For those who are looking for ways to maximize the transfer on their estate, here is an aggressive (i.e., read not well tested in tax court) way of supercharing the commond credit shelter trust.
The basic idea is to turn a credit shelter trust into a grantor trust of the surviving spouse. This [...]
Wealth Strategies Journal
17 years ago
A new journal focused on estate planning, asset protection and other issues relavant to high net worth individuals.
Additional Insured – Revocable Living Trust
17 years ago
Typically the drafting attorney will take care of deeding your property into your new revocable living trust (RLT). The attorney will normally include instructions for the client to notify their home owners insurance that the trust should now be named an additional insured. Unfortunately, this [...]
Avoid Springing Powers of Attorney
18 years ago
From a presentation given by attorney Tim Nay M.S.W., J.D at the NAPFA West Region Conference.
Avoid springing powers of attorney (POA) because the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other considerations making springing powers increasingly problematic. Instead POAs [...]