Estate Planning

August 12, 2012

SOME INHERITANCES ARE BEST BESTOWED IN DIFFERENT BUT EQUAL WAYS

Most parents want to love and treat all of their children the same, but when it comes to estate planning, not every child should be treated the same. In fact, insisting on treating all children exactly the same in an estate plan can often lead to disastrous consequences.

Each of your children is unique, and their circumstances may grow increasingly different, especially as they become adults and acquire jobs and extended in-law families. Each child should accordingly be treated as a unique individual.

Here are a few ways that wise parents might consider treating their children differently in an estate plan, but sill equally:

August 11, 2012

AN ESTATE PLAN CAN HIGHLIGHT RELIGIOUS VALUES… WITHIN LIMITS

by David M. Goldman

Many parents hope to pass their values onto their children and grandchildren. Often one of the most important values that they hope to pass on are values based on religion and spirituality. In some cases, religious values are so important to a parent that they will even include mention of these values in their estate planning documents. Our firm strongly believes that an estate plan is not just about money, but about leaving a legacy, and we often encourage our clients to include mention of their values–religious or otherwise.

Formalizing a legacy of values is not always as easy as leaving a financial legacy, however; and there is a limit to how far a parent or grandparent can go in dictating religious values to their heirs. Being too restrictive in an estate plan in an effort to pass on religious values–choosing to disinherit children who marry outside the faith, for example–can often create divisions within a family and spark extended, costly legal battles, all while failing to have any true impact on your heirs’ beliefs. In addition, many of these clauses have historically been poorly drafted and violate the public policy of the freedom to marry and are stricken by courts.

One of the most common value-imposing strategies used by parents in estate planning is to require that children marry within a certain faith in order to receive their inheritance. This strategy has worked in some instances, for example, in 2009 the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the decisions of lower courts and unanimously ruled that Max Feinberg, and his wife, Erla, could legally cut off their grandchildren who chose to marry outside of the Jewish religion.

August 10, 2012

FACEBOOK FOUNDERS USE GRATS TO AVOID EXCESSIVE TAXATION; YOU CAN TOO

by David M. Goldman

News sources recently revealed that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg — as well as other Facebook top brass–use Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts ( GRAT or GRATS) to protect their assets and investments from excessive taxation. A Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (more commonly called GRATs) is a perfectly legal–and very efficient–way to protect and pass significant assets from one person to another without incurring an exorbitantly high tax bill.

GRATs differ from certain other asset protection trusts in that they offer a good vehicle for wealthy investors who put money in start-ups, while other trusts may not. But it’s not only wealthy startup investors who may find GRATs useful. GRATs are an excellent way to shift wealth to others at little or no tax cost and with minimal legal and economic risk. As such, they can be the perfect tool for business owners, professional investors, and many others. Setting up a GRAT allows the investor/grantor to give assets over to the trust for a pre-determined number of years. During this time the assets appreciate and the grantor receives annual payments adding up to the asset’s original value plus a return based on a fixed interest rate determined by the Internal Revenue Service. At the end of the trust term the assets (at their new value) are transferred to the beneficiary named in the trust with none of the usual gift or estate tax on the appreciation.

This makes GRATs sound like the perfect (and perfectly simple) tool, but nothing is perfectly simple. The pre-determined lifetime of your GRAT will depend on your individual circumstances, as well as the tax laws at the time, so you’ll want to make sure you have the help of an experienced and knowledgeable attorney helping you design your trust. Contact our office for more information.

August 10, 2012

Reasons to make an Estate Plan

by David M. Goldman

Here are three compelling reasons to make an estate plan. We all know people similar to those portrayed below. While estate taxes and probate are often compelling reasons to create estate plans, sometimes it is the family dynamics that drive the necessity of estate planning.

July 26, 2012

Can Life Insurance be subject to Creditors in Florida?

by David M. Goldman

While traditionally in Florida the proceeds from a life insurance police are exempt from the claims of a creditor, what happens if the beneficiary designations fail or the proceeds are directed back to an individuals probate estate or revocable trust?

In a recent Florida case, life insurance benefits were directed to the descendants revocable trust upon his death. This could have only happened intentionally unless a revocable trust was the owner and the beneficiary designation failed because it was improper or the beneficiary died before the grantor of the trust.

When the grantor of the trust died, the trusts instructions told the successor trustee to pay the settlor’s death obligations. Even if such language was not in the decedent’s revocable trust, they are presumed under Florida Law.

July 19, 2012

How Many Estate Planning Lawyers do you Need?

by David M. Goldman

According to a recent article on Forbes.com, the importance of estate planning for married couples cannot be stressed enough. The seriousness of such forward thinking is even more critical in blended families which tend to present more opportunities for volatility following the death of a parent.

The first issue for all couples to resolve is whether to be represented jointly by the same estate planning lawyer or for you each to go it alone. While joint representation can be more cost-effective, it can mean that both parties don’t have the freedom to speak up about their individual concerns. Unless there is healthy communication between the spouses joint representation can be a recipe for disaster.

The following are some good rules of thumbs to consider when deciding whether you need your own or joint representation:

July 18, 2012

How to Avoid Probate in Florida

by David M. Goldman

Thumbnail image for last-will-and-testament-document-with-gavel-and-pen-58750624.jpg With a little careful planning, you may be able to avoid the probate question all together. Avoiding probate saves money and greatly reduces the strain placed on your family by time in court. A meeting with an estate-planning attorney can help you figure out how to structure your estate so that probate is not necessary, no matter how large the value of the estate. The following is a list of estate-planning tools that can help you avoid having to go through the probate process. Be careful replying on some of these because they may expose you to unnecessary risk of loss of the assets due to litigation. If you are interested in protecting assets and avoiding probate contact us to discuss your specific needs.

1. Living Trusts: Living trusts (also called an “inter vivos” trust) is a trust that is created while you are alive, rather than one created upon your death. Living trusts are great vehicles to avoid the lengthy and expensive probate process.

2. Joint Ownership: If you own property jointly with someone else, and this ownership includes the “right of survivorship,” then the surviving owner automatically owns the property when the other owner dies. An asset that is owned by two or more people in joint tenancy is not required to go through probate.

July 16, 2012

Should I receive regular payments from a Trust as a Beneficiary?

by David M. Goldman

Beneficiaries or people who think they are beneficiaries of trusts often ask up if they should receive regular payments or distributions from a trust. As with most legal issues the answers “depends on the circumstances and what the documents state”.

Without reviewing your trust to determine if it is a revocable trust, revocable trust that has become irrevocable, or an irrevocable trust as well who the beneficiaries it is difficult to tell whether you are entitled to anything.

Sometimes people think they are beneficiaries when they are contingent beneficiaries and have no rights until a triggering event occurs. Often that is the death of the person who created the trust or their spouse.

July 11, 2012

Elder Law Update: States That Could Make Children Pay for Dad’s Care

by David M. Goldman

Unpdaid long-term care bills are increasing and becoming more of a problem in many states. All 50 States have statutes that obligate adults to care for children or other family members; if your parent lives in one of 29 states, you could be held responsible for your parents unpaid long-term care bills. What? How could this be? are the typical reactions to many living in these unfortunate states.

Katherine Pearson at Penn State Law School has written a paper on Fillal Support Laws and the enforcement Practices for laws requiring adult children to pay for indigent parents.

Her abstract states:

July 10, 2012

Should you make a gift in 2012 and avoid Gift Tax on $5.12 Million

by David M. Goldman

December 31 the 5 Million Dollar gift tax exemption is set to expire and revert back to 1 Million dollars. This is separate from the $13,000 annual gift exclusion. There is a relatively small percentage of the population that this can make a difference for. Even for those who could take advantage of it, many are not so eager to give away the money just to reduce their future estate tax bill. Many older people feel that they will not have enough to live on if they give away the funds.

The deadline for making such a gift is rapidly approaching as it can take several weeks to prepare document to deal with the issues correctly.

There are ways of making the gifts so that exposure to creditors is limited. Some ways of making the gift are in the form of cash, in trust, as part of a business, or a combination of the above.