It is risky to leave your estate and financial affairs unattended or secret from the rest of your family. According to research released this year, over 64% of all Americans do not have a will, and half of the people included in that statistic have children. When you do not…
Balancing the relationship between a trustee and beneficiary can be delicate, and if it is not handled properly the results can be costly problems and years of frustration. The beneficiaries are set to inherit valuables, homes, stock, and other assets. Yet it is the very nature of those assets that…
Each decade of life ushers in a new set of challenges and issues for financial and estate planning. In your 20s, you are trying to establish yourself as independently financial and pay off your student loans. In your 30s, the estate and financial focus typically turns to planning for a…
Couples without children have two main tasks when it comes to estate planning: the first is determining how to distribute the assets in the estate. The second, and arguably trickier task, is to assign a person or people who will handle your medical and financial affairs in the unfortunate event…
Many parents with adult children find the idea of discussing their estate plans uncomfortable, embarrassing, or unnecessary. Few parents want to think about their mortality or bring up the subject with their kids. Concerns about family fights over parts of the estate, which child is getting what, or reliance on…
For wealthy donors who wish to put their name on a building, beware. There can be a lot of disappointment for donors who give away large sums of money, thinking that they would get to see their name on a building or institution like a university, science lab, or cultural…
One estate planning scam is growing in popularity for people who are looking to begin crafting their estate plan and have amassed wealth or business over their lifetimes. The estate planning aggregator claims to do comprehensive planning for people who have concerns about taxes on their wealth or business issues…
One New York resident, now 65 years old and in retirement, has amassed a Las Vegas chip collection worth an estimated $500,000 over the course of two decades. However, he is childless, and no one in his extended family has expressed an interest in keeping the collection. He is also…
If you want to lower your overall taxes for this year, now is the time to act. The opportunities to cut taxes on your overall bill are reduced dramatically after December 31. Many taxpayers forget about these opportunities or act too late to take advantage. In addition, Congress has yet…
Part of proper estate planning means safeguarding not only your physical, tangible assets but your digital assets, as well. Many people do not protect these assets for a variety of reasons: a few do not think that it is important, some do not know how, and others simply do not…