There are many misconceptions regarding planning one's estate. For starters, many United Kingdom residents believe that estate planning is only for the wealthy. However, there are numerous benefits for everyone to plan for their financial futures.There are many benefits...
Estate Planning
Contributing to a college savings plan to reduce tax liability
Gifting is an excellent and underused strategy for estate planning for those who are concerned about taxes. For the wealthy, one option for gifting is to make contributions to a 529 college savings plan.Financial planners and attorneys know that most of these...
Elder Law: Protecting Your Loved Ones and Yourself
There's no avoiding it - you're getting older. Sometimes our society likes to make that a bad thing, but the truth is that with age comes wisdom, freedom, and perspective. That selfsame wisdom and perspective that you have earned over the years has probably shown you...
Reminder: coordinate prenup with your wills and trusts
Prenuptial agreements have grown in popularity in recent years, and according to family law attorneys, especially in the past year. A lot of what is behind the increase is the fact that people are marrying later in life and bringing more assets to marriage that...
James Bond rights now owned by sister companies
A recent copyright dispute involving the rights and interests to James Bond movies was recently resolved, apparently amicably, between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Danjaq LLC and Kevin McClory. The latter was reportedly involved in the script for the Bond move...
Life insurance trusts in estate planning
Life insurance is a potentially useful tool in estate planning, and can be used for a variety of purposes such as ensuring an estate has enough liquidity to manage its debts and funding trusts. One specific way to use life insurance is to establish an irrevocable life...
Poor man’s will not without potentially serious problems
The mistakes that can be made in estate planning are many, though there are some common ones that tend to pop up more often than others. Some of the obvious ones are: not doing any estate planning; failing to periodically update an estate plan; failing to engage in...
Working gifting into your estate plan
Gifting can be an important part of an overall estate plan, but it is important for people to realize that there are certain rules surrounding gifting, if one wishes to avoid unnecessary taxation. One of the most important rules is that gifts can count against...
Elderly woman beats tax court on gifting arrangement, P.2
In our previous post, we began looking at the story of an elderly woman who came up with a gift arrangement that would allow her to avoid having to pay the full tax rate. The IRS, as is understandable, objected to the arrangement, claiming that the gift did not...
Elderly woman beats tax court on gifting arrangement, P.1
Gifting can be an important aspect in estate planning, particularly for the wealthy who are trying to get their estate to fall within the estate tax exemption amount. Gifting isn’t as simple as giving assets away, though. Because of gift tax, there are limits on how...