Articles Posted in Estate Planning

With the end of the year approaching, it is good time to review your estate plan and take care of any last minute financial chores before any new tax and estate planning laws take effect for the following year. Here are eight basic items to check off of your to-do list as the end of the year approaches:

Review your Current Retirement Accounts

With the stock market rebounding this year and other market indexes at all-time highs, it is important to revisit your current retirement accounts and consider reallocating your asset distribution within your retirement accounts. It is also a good chance to see if you are on track with your contributions for the year, especially if your employer matches your contribution to the account. Even if you can’t make the maximum this year, consider bumping up your contributions until the end of the year.

The federal estate tax is no longer the biggest concern for many people going through the estate planning process. However, this was not always the case. In 2004, any estate worth more than $1.5 million, or whose estate owner made gifts above that limit while alive, were subject to federal tax at top rates of almost 50%. There was extreme uncertainty as the federal tax levels bounced around from year to year and even disappeared entirely in 2010, which made effective planning exceedingly difficult.

Finally, last year Congress set up a new estate and gift tax rate, topped at 40%, and raised the exemption level to $5.34 million per person. Each year that number is adjusted for inflation and the level is expected to be set at $5.43 million per person next year.

New Tax Saving Opportunities

Despite the strong standards that are set by the state and federal governments that are supposed to ensure that our elderly nursing home residents receive good care, a recent federal study found that over one third of all short term patients who enter a nursing home for rehabilitation are harmed. Moreover, the study found that almost sixty percent of the harm caused to these residents could have been preventable.

Federal Nursing Home Study

The report, published by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, studied the number of adverse events occurring in skilled nursing facilities across the United States. The experts discovered that an estimated 22% of Medicare beneficiaries suffered an “adverse event” during their stay at a nursing home facility, and an additional eleven percent suffered a temporary harm during their time at a facility.

Not only is it important to create an estate plan that documents your final wishes for your estate and medical choices, but it is equally important to remember where those documents are when they are needed. Family members or close friends need to know where they can locate your estate planning documents in the time just before or after your passing. If someone does not know where these documents are kept, it could mean that your final wishes are not fulfilled.

Problems with Lost Documents

Being unable to find estate planning documents can have a drastic effect on your final wishes. One man wished to be buried at Arlington Cemetery after he had died, but his son could not find the paperwork after his passing. The cemetery offered to place his father in cold storage for six months while the son tracked down the proper forms documenting his military discharge. He eventually found it being used as a bookmark in his father’s home.

More and more grandparents are now using some of the money that they have tucked away using retirement and estate planning to help their grandchildren pay for college. According to a study done by Sallie Mae, 17% of families in the United States relied on relatives to help pay for college. This percentage is expected to increase as more grandparents use their estate plans to help benefit their families.

However, it is important that grandparents should be smart about how they help their grandchildren pay for school because it can have major tax consequences for them and their loved ones if the correct steps are not taken.

Understanding Estate Planning Gift Taxes

Battles over estates can intensify underlying issues between siblings and ultimately tear families apart. However, there are ways to lessen the chances of infighting among your heirs before you pass on. Advance planning can drastically help minimize conflicts among your children, spouse, and other heirs.

Not Just About the Money

According to a prominent wealth management group, around $30 trillion of wealth will be passed to the younger generations over the next thirty to forty years. Roughly 70% of those families will lose a chunk of their inheritance, mostly due to estate battles.

Far too many entrepreneurs, despite their successes in business, have put far too little time into planning for the eventual sale of their business for retirement. In fact, more often than not business owners do not start planning the sale of the business until the day that they sit down with a potential buyer. Starting this late almost always means that money is left on the table, and it is far too late to make a meaningful difference in the money that you will be able to keep when you sell your business.

Talk to Estate Planning Attorneys

One of the most important people to speak with when planning the sale of your business is an estate planning attorney. After explaining the financials and structure of your business as well as a timeline for when you wish to sell, your estate planning attorney can review your tax situation and explain what your options are to save the most money in an estate plan.

When you hear about Medicare taxes, you probably do not also consider how it affects investments. However, these new taxes can impose higher costs both on wages and net invested income. If you are concerned about how the Medicare tax may affect your estate or retirement plan, speak with an experienced estate planning attorney today.

Medicare Tax and Payroll Income

Medicare tax on payroll income is 2.9%. It applies to all earned income, which includes payroll from your employer in addition to any tips. Half of the tax is paid by you, and the other half is paid by your employer. For high wage earners, Medicare tax imposes an additional 0.9% tax on individuals who make over $200,000, $250,000 for couples filing taxes together, or $125,000 for spouses filing separately. Your employer is required to withhold the 0.9% from your paycheck once you exceed the $200,000 limit.

A lot of people assume that estate planning is just for the old and the wealthy; however, that is not the case. As a Daily Finance article discusses, when you are in your thirties, planning for your eventual passing is not usually a top priority, but most estate planning experts agree that this is the best time to begin to create an estate plan that will protect you and your family in case the unexpected occurs.

Sometimes it can be even more important for people in their thirties to create an estate plan because they have just as much to lose, sometimes more, than their parents and elders. A lot of people entering this decade are settling down, getting married, buying their first home, and having children – all of which needs to be protected.

An estate planning attorney can help you start to draft your estate plan, and here are the basic documents that you should consider putting into place:

Prenuptial agreements, or prenups, are almost always associated with marriage and divorce; however, they can also be a powerful tool for estate planning. This type of agreement can be used to clarify the rights and responsibilities of both spouses if one suddenly passes away. A prenuptial agreement can be used in estate planning to reduce family in-fighting and other legal issues by predetermining what the spouse is entitled to in the estate.

Using a Prenup to Prevent Estate Nullification

Most prenuptial agreements are made when one or both spouses come into the marriage with significant assets, land, or wealth, if one or both spouses have been previously married, or if children from a previous relationship are involved. One of the biggest advantages to a prenup for the purposes of estate planning in these situations is that the agreement prevents the spouse from nullifying the existing estate plan.