Estate planning without politics, protecting your wealth

Changing legislation and tax laws can affect your estate planning but there are some estate planning issues that remain the same regardless of those changes.

The first is making sue you update your health care documents and will(s). Make sure the people named in those documents are still the people you want named in those documents. Some things to think about are power of attorney, trustees, has your relationship changed with anyone name in your documents?

For example, if your power of attorney has moved across the country you might want to designate a new one closer to home.

Setting up new trusts

You can set up trusts for your kids and grandchildren. While exemptions have changed over the years, the gifting exemption has stayed relatively constant. By setting up these trusts you can avoid gifting taxes.

Sell off assets

You can sell of the family business, real estate and other assets and place the proceeds in a trust. A family business is along term investment so if you sell it off and place the process in a trust it will provide economic security and prevent it from any local state, estate taxes.