Articles Posted in Estate Planning

Estimates say there are somewhere between 300 and 450 people at or above age 110 alive today in the world. But a report from Social Security’s inspector general says that Social Security records say there are about 6.5 million Americans above the age of 112 that haven’t yet passed away. While Social Security isn’t paying…

A recently conducted a survey of pet owners and found nearly half (44%) of pet owners have prepared for the future care of their animals should their pets outlive them. Utilizing traditional financial planning instruments such as living trusts, life insurance and annuities, pet owners are able to have peace of mind knowing that their…

If you want to leave money for your grandchildren you can easily do that in your will. But what forms(s) should it take? The obvious answer is to set up a trust What you could do is set up what they call a pot trust. A pot trust is basically a pot of money from…

Aretha Franklin died without any kind of estate planning. Her estate was worth an estimated 80 million. But, since she had no advanced estate planning, after applying the federal estate tax exemption the estate will only be worth $68,800,000 and that is subject to 40% federal tax. Now that valuation doesn’t include attorney’s fees, court…

The internet offers many ways to create your own estate planning documents and you can take that route if you want to save money, but you are better off hiring a professional to insure all your documentation is legally valid. There’s nothing wrong with saving some dough by drafting your own estate-planning documents. You can…

We’ve written ad nauseum about how less that half of Americans have a will. Well, almost that many also forget to include their digital assets in their estate plan. Most Americans don’t keep track of their online assets like Paypal, Facebook, and merchant loyalty reward programs and chances are will forget to include them in…

Under the New York Health Care Proxy Law you can appoint someone you trust to make health care decisions for you if you lose the ability to make those decisions yourself. That person is considered your health care proxy or agent. A health care proxy is a way to eliminate confusion among your loved ones…

End-of-life planning isn’t fun. In fact, it’s a drag. But it’s an important aspect of managing your assets and protecting your family. That’s why it’s surprising that 6 out of 10 Americans don’t have estate planning documents, much less a will. Surveys show only 42 percent of U.S. adults currently have estate planning documents such…

Pretty much everyone dies with some amount of debt, Mostly it’s run-of-the-mill bills. But there can be some debt that can shock heirs, especially if they didn’t know about it. Creditors need to be paid so the question is, so does all debt need to be settled? The short answer is: that depends. Your liability…

The world’s most populous nation, China has the second-largest economy and one of the highest savings rates and mushrooming wealth. Yet virtually no one has a will, and that’s a big problem. The first generation, thirty years after China embarked on a course that allowed individuals to accumulate wealth, is statring to die. This dieoff…