Selecting medical powers of attorney is an important step that aging parents should take to ensure they get the care they wan,t if they are unable to advocate for themselves.
Losing your spouse is a painful, confusing time, but add to that repeated calls from an aggressive debt collector and a bad situation suddenly can get even worse.
Even those who have saved and invested well may not be sharing their financial information with a spouse or loved one. It’s time to do that now.
Here are the top five mistakes people make that upend their planning.
Many people are under the impression that since they have a trust, they don’t need to do anything else. That’s not true. The trust you created years ago may not be appropriate for you now.
You created your revocable living trust to hold your assets. You did so because of the probate avoidance and other benefits. You may have included sophisticated tax-planning provisions in your trust.
What if parents have wills and their contingent beneficiaries are their two adult children. If one of the adult children dies before the parents, who gets that contingent beneficiary’s share?
At some point in your life, there’s a good chance you’ll be tasked with acting as the executor of an estate.
Taxpayers should, of course, carefully consider whether to engage in a lifetime gifting strategy, which has other considerations beyond just estate taxes (such as the tradeoff with the ‘step‑up’ in basis, and non-tax family related considerations).
Trusts can provide certain benefits for estate planning, including asset protection. But can you sue a trust?
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