A charitable lead trust provides a regular income stream to one or more charities during the trust term, after which the remaining assets pass to your heirs or other noncharitable beneficiaries.
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To ensure your desired treatment of adopted children or unadopted stepchildren, you and your spouse or partner must clearly communicate your plans through wills, trusts and other estate planning documents.
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In addition to helping to reduce health care costs, a Health Savings Account can positively affect an estate plan because its funds grow on a tax-deferred basis, potentially building wealth for heirs.
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Splitting gifts with your spouse can reduce your gift tax liability, but specific rules must be followed to avoid unintended outcomes.
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Estate tax planning can get complicated if you or your spouse is a nonresident alien.
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A Crummey trust allows you to leverage the annual gift tax exclusion to transfer substantial amounts of wealth to your family tax free. But pitfalls to this strategy exist.
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Your beneficiary designations and jointly held assets can wreak havoc if you don’t coordinate them carefully with the rest of your estate plan.
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A defined-value gift may be right for you if you’re transferring hard-to-value assets. However, to pass muster with the IRS, precise language must be used in the transfer document.
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Ambiguous language in your estate plan may lead to family disputes after your death.
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If you own real estate in multiple states, consider using a revocable trust to minimize or avoid excessive probate costs after your death.
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Lifetime giving is a smart strategy to reduce your taxable estate, but the gift tax rate of 40% is steep. Making a “net gift” can potentially reduce your effective gift tax rate.
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Did you know that you can exercise some control over your charitable endeavors using a donor-advised fund (DAF)? As the name implies, recommendations are integral to a DAF.
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Do you need to file a gift tax return this year? It depends on the type of gifts you made.
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Appointing the right trust protector is critical. Given the power he or she has over your family’s wealth, you’ll want to choose someone whom you trust and who’s qualified to make financial decisions.
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Can a charitable remainder trust achieve similar results as the formerly available “stretch” IRA?
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A divorce is a life event that calls for an estate plan review and possible revisions.
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Can estate planning benefits convince you to convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA?
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Even with the gift and estate tax exemption amount reaching more than $12 million for 2022, making lifetime gifts continues to be a beneficial estate planning strategy.
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Much can change over one’s lifetime (personal circumstances and tax laws), making estate planning difficult. Building flexibility into your plan is key.
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Choosing the “wrong” executor could cause a multitude of problems for your family.
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