No one likes to contemplate his or her own mortality. But ignoring the need for an estate plan or procrastinating in the creation of one is asking for trouble. If you haven’t started the…
Let’s assume you have a legally valid will but you’ve decided that it should be revised because of a change in your family’s circumstances. Perhaps all you want to do is add a newborn…
Personal items — which may have modest monetary value but significant sentimental value — may be more difficult to address in an estate plan than big-ticket items. Squabbling over these items may lead to…
Portability allows a surviving spouse to apply a deceased spouse’s unused federal gift and estate tax exemption amount toward his or her own transfers during life or at death. To secure these benefits, however,…
The best laid plans can go awry. After your death, events may transpire that you hadn’t anticipated or couldn’t have reasonably foreseen. There’s no way of predicting the future, but you may want to…
According to a University of Pennsylvania report, approximately 37% of Americans have “advance directives,” which include living wills and power-of-attorney designations. These documents specify what should occur and who should make medical decisions should…
Families that have children who are adopted, or stepchildren who haven’t been legally adopted, may face unique estate planning challenges. Additional consideration must be taken when a family includes an unmarried couple in a…
A Health Savings Account (HSA) can be a powerful tool for financing health care expenses while supplementing your other retirement savings vehicles. And it offers estate planning benefits to boot. ABCs of an HSA…
Estate tax planning can become complicated when multiple parties are involved. For example, you may be concerned about providing assets to a surviving spouse of a second marriage, while also providing for your children…
