When you are considering what you will be able to leave behind to your loved ones after you are gone, you may be overlooking a huge potential expense. Retirement is viewed as a period of your life when you have a lot of free time to enjoy if you can afford to put your working years behind you. Planning ahead for this interim from a financial perspective will involve evaluating your anticipated ordinary living expenses. Once you are in a position to meet them, you may feel as though the … [Read more...] about Will Nursing Home Costs Consume Your Legacy?
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Inheritance Balancing for Family Business Owners
You should discuss your unique personal situation with an estate planning attorney to gain insight into the options that are available to you. Unfortunately, there are people that conform to constraints that they apply to themselves unnecessarily because they are not aware of alternative approaches. With the above in mind, in this post, we will look at a widely embraced solution for small business owners that face inheritance balancing situations. Keeping It Fair To explain by way of … [Read more...] about Inheritance Balancing for Family Business Owners
Take Steps to Prevent a Guardianship
A guardianship proceeding could be convened if you were to become unable to handle your affairs as a senior citizen without taking any steps in advance to prepare for this contingency. Before you turn the page under the impression that you will never become incapacitated, you should understand some statistics. Incapacity can be caused by various different conditions, but there is one disease that completely changes the playing field. Everyone has heard of Alzheimer’s, but many are surprised … [Read more...] about Take Steps to Prevent a Guardianship
What’s the Difference Between SSI and SSDI?
In the estate planning field, we often help clients that have concerns about eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). This will usually be a factor when someone wants to provide for a loved one with special needs. There is another program that is similar in many ways called Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The fact that it is a source of income for people that are disabled is self-apparent, but this program is separate from SSI. Let’s look at the differences between … [Read more...] about What’s the Difference Between SSI and SSDI?
Estate Planning Demystified
People all too often put estate planning on the back burner because they view it as some type of huge, complicated endeavor that seems intimidating. It is true that arranging for the transfer of everything that you have accumulated throughout your life to the people that you love the most is a profound action. However, when you understand the basic structure, this seemingly gargantuan proposition shrinks down to size. With this in mind, let’s look at the basic framework of a typical estate … [Read more...] about Estate Planning Demystified
Four Reasons to Engage an Estate Planning Attorney
There are companies on the Internet that sell downloads and worksheets that you can use to create legal documents, including estate planning devices like last wills. This can make it seem like you really don’t need a lawyer to plan your estate. Is this true? Since we are in the profession, you may assume that we cannot answer this question objectively, but you don’t have to take our word for it. Several years ago, three legal professors that were enlisted by the magazine and website … [Read more...] about Four Reasons to Engage an Estate Planning Attorney
When Does a Living Trust Terminate?
A living trust as an estate planning tool that is the ideal choice for a wide range of people. Unfortunately, many individuals harbor some misconceptions about trusts, and one of them is the notion that you lose all control of assets that you convey into any type of trust. In reality, this is not the case at all, because there are two different classes of trusts. It is true that there are irrevocable trust that cannot be dissolved, and generally speaking, the terms cannot be changed although … [Read more...] about When Does a Living Trust Terminate?
Don’t Forget a Letter of Final Instructions
When you plan your estate, there will be a legal document at the core that you use to state your wishes regarding the distribution of your monetary assets. For most people, it will be a last will, and there are others that use trusts of various kinds. Making your decisions known can seem like the long and short of it, but you should certainly take the estate administration process into account. If you use a will, you would name an executor to act as the trust administrator after you are … [Read more...] about Don’t Forget a Letter of Final Instructions
Estate Taxes 101
Many people have questions about the way that taxes come into play when an estate is being distributed. It may be natural to assume that an inheritance would be looked upon as taxable income by the Internal Revenue Service. In a rare instance of good news as it applies to the tax man, generally speaking, direct inheritances are not subject to regular income taxes. Another positive is the way that appreciable assets are treated when they are changing hands after someone dies. If you were to … [Read more...] about Estate Taxes 101
What Is a Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust?
When you discuss potentially challenging estate planning matters with an attorney from our firm, you will probably be pleasantly surprised when you become aware of the solutions. There are many different approaches that can be taken depending on the circumstances that exist. With this in mind, we will look at third party supplemental needs trusts in this piece. Government Benefit Eligibility A very significant percentage of people with disabilities rely on Medi-Cal as a much needed source … [Read more...] about What Is a Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust?
