Let LA Probate Law Secure Your Children’s Future
Making sure that you are able to provide for your children’s future is a great way to be remembered for years to come. Estate planning offers many tools to enable you to accomplish your goals of putting your assets into their hands, as well as being able to reduce your own taxes – and possible estate taxes. Whether you want to give them an education, make sure that they have money to maintain their current lifestyle, set them up in business, give them an inheritance, or all of the above, you can do any of these things with careful estate planning. The attorneys at LA Probate Law are experienced estate planners who know the ins and outs of the laws concerning estate planning, and they can help you create the ideal tools for you to accomplish your financial goals for your heirs. As soon as you can list your assets that you want to give them, and have a plan to start with, we can help you fine tune your plan and provide recommendations to actually accomplish it.
Estate Planning Needs to Be Done Correctly for Best Results
One thing that estate planning does is that it enables people to put more assets into the hands of their children and other heirs. It provides you with tools for you to reduce your own taxes, and to remove many of your assets from estate taxes, which can be as high as forty percent or so. That is certainly no small amount, and without a plan of some kind, your heirs are going to get a lot less than they could. Estate planning enables you to put many of your assets beyond the reach of estate taxes, and it can also enable you to have some degree of control over how the assets are going to be used or dispersed after your death. The primary tools that you have to do this are going to be your Will, savings accounts, trusts, and giving gifts. Each of these can be used in a variety of ways to give your estate away, but it is very important that any means you choose is legally able to deliver after you are gone. Mistakes cannot be corrected at that time. All too often, mistakes in the preparation of documents are made when people decide to do it on their own. Although you are certainly free to do so, the potential legal problems are often unseen simply because they do not know what could happen. Scott Schomer at LA Probate Law is ready to help your estate planning tools do they job you intended all along – to get it to your heirs and get as much of it as possible to them after you are gone.
A Will Needs to Be Prepared Correctly to Succeed
A Will is often used to give assets to a spouse, and to children. Sometimes, however, a Will fails to be validated (declared legal), and then all the assets under that document go through the estate and are subject to estate tax. This is a good reason why it is a good idea to have a professional – an attorney – like Scott Schomer at LA Probate Law, prepare your documents and other estate planning tools, rather than do-it-yourself. He can help you decide which tools will best work in your situation. There are many types of Wills, and they may be subject to being contested. An attorney can take steps to reduce this possibility through language and other means. Also, assets can be placed in other instruments, too, which mean that even if the Will is successfully contested, that not a lot of assets are affected.
Trusts Are Excellent Tools to Provide for Children
Trusts provide a lot of excellent ways to pass assets on to your children and still be able to control them. There are many forms of trusts, and you can do almost anything with them when created correctly. A trust is put under the control of a trustee, who is responsible to distribute the assets as directed, which could be monthly payments, when they reach maturity, for college only, etc. Assets put into a trust are generally able to escape estate taxes because they are considered to be outside of the estate. One trust, a generation-skipping trust, enables you to pass your assets directly to your grandchildren, and it does so tax-free. Creating a trust may also be useful if you believe you are going to need to receive help from either Medi-Cal or Medicare. To be sure that it will accomplish your goals, however, you should first talk to the office at LA Probate Law. Another type of trust, called an irrevocable life insurance trust, enables you to put your life insurance proceeds right into the trust, but you can direct it to pay off your funeral and estate costs and give the balance to your children tax-free.
Gift-giving Is a Powerful Tool in Estate Planning
Gift-giving is a powerful way to give money to your children while you are still alive. You are allowed to give up to so much money per person per year (currently $12,000), and it reduces your taxable income by that amount. This money does not go through your estate and it is tax free. A considerable amount of money can be given away each year, and a large amount over a period of several years. You can also give money to charitable organizations, religious organizations, and more. LA Probate Law can help you with it to ensure that it is done correctly, and that it does not create tax problems for your children.
Let LA Probate Law Secure Your Children’s Future
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