Take a moment to think, do any of these situations apply to you? Each of them corresponds to a report that Walker Lambe has written regarding crucial information.
A Special Child Needs Special Planning
It’s a painful dilemma that parents of special children often face: to keep a disabled child eligible for important federal and state benefit programs, the child can have few assets. That leaves parents with a difficult choice: provide a legacy for their special child and hope it will be sufficient for all his needs, or make the child a virtual pauper and retain his or her eligibility for government assistance.
Fortunately, there is a simple answer within reach of nearly everyone.
Charity Begins at Home
Whether you are a budding philanthropist looking for the best way to contribute to society or an investor looking for strategies to maximize income and tax breaks, the Charitable Remainder Trust offers a powerful solution to your needs.
The Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Wills
In a case settled in 2005, a successful Washington businessman wrote his own Will assuming his assets would be free of estate tax. However, due to the language he used, the IRS interpreted the law differently and claimed all the assets he passed to his wife were subject to $800,000 in estate tax plus $130,000 in back interest.
Estate Planning is Life Planning
Perhaps you have children who are of age, but still not financially responsible enough for you to feel comfortable with them receiving their entire inheritance outright. Through the establishment of trusts, you can ensure that these children are cared for and also set guidelines for how and when they should receive distributions, and for what purposes. Proper planning can also protect these assets from lawsuits, divorces, and the claims of creditors.
Grandparent’s Guide
Even though your children are now grown, there are many areas of concern about which parents of adult children still worry. One of these is that many adult children do not have even a simple Will in place, let alone a comprehensive estate plan for their family should something happen to them. In addition to their lack of an estate plan, there is the very real possibility that the wealth you envision passing on to them can easily be lost to divorces, remarriages, lawsuits, and/or poor money management.
Peace of Mind: Planning for all of Life’s Contingencies
Perhaps most importantly, our attorneys can help ensure that after your death your estate will go to whom you want, when you want and how you want without the expense, delay or publicity of probate. Of course, confronting your own mortality is a process that makes most people uneasy; but that’s nothing compared to the anguish that often befalls the families of those who make no plans at all.
To My Dog Lucky
We often forget about our furry and feathered family members or assume that one of our surviving family members will take on their care. However, if we do not make arrangements for our pets, they may join the hundreds of thousands of sad, orphaned pets who end up in shelters or are euthanized because their owner is no longer able to take care of and provide for them.
What Every Senior Should Know
Even if your estate is valued at no more than $100,000, you could benefit from a Living Trust to avoid Death Probate. And regardless of how much your estate is worth, a Living Trust could be used to help avoid Living Probate.
Asset Protection
Having a Children’s Trust or a Family Limited Partnership also promotes family investment values. The children now have an identifiable stake in the family’s financial success. It can go a long way toward helping them understand the value of money and wise investments.
Critical Update: 3 Ways You Can Protect Your Cash
FDIC insurance coverage rules can become much more complicated under certain circumstances: When there are more than two owners of a Revocable Trust, when the ownership of the trust is not in equal shares, or when the beneficiaries do not receive equal shares of the trust at the death of the owner.
Estate Planning with Individual Retirement Accounts
These choices may have important tax consequences, some of which we will explore in the pages that follow. For the remainder of this report, we will be designing a plan for Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their two children. This sample family will help us look at the unique issues involved in IRA planning.
Gay & Lesbian Estate Planning
The right to privacy and personal control over health care issues and distribution of assets are just some of the reasons gay and lesbian couples should consider a Living Trust as their estate planning vehicle of choice.
Living Trusts: Calculating the Benefits
The desire to ensure that an heir is provided for materially is the most common reason for creating a Living Trust. In the case of minors, a Trust allows a parent to provide for a child without giving the child control over the property.
Special Valuation Benefits for Farms
Real estate developers have recently offered the family $1,750,000 for the Family Farm. Soon after the offer, the surviving spouse passes away. The family meets with a financial advisor to find out what happens now. The advisor states that $1,750,000 is the value of the Family Farm in mother’s taxable estate.
Trouble with Joint Tenancy
Although Joint Tenancy offers some short-term conveniences, it also brings with it a slew of problems that more than make up for any convenience it provides. In fact, Joint Tenancy can end up costing you — and your loved ones — many times the expense and headaches you thought you were avoiding.
When There’s a Will, There’s Probate
The most private public figure of the 20th century, Mrs. Onassis jealously guarded her own and her family’s privacy throughout her life. But in spite of her efforts in life, everything came out in death. Because she used a Will to dispose of her assets, she ensured that many of the details of her $200 million estate and the terms of her final wishes would be made public [through Probate].