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ESTATE PLANNING
Estate planning involves review of each client's financial condition and prospects, the family situation and a consideration of the client's plan for benefiting others after the client's demise. Estate planning is important for every individual regardless of the size of the client's estate. My role for every client is to make all appropriate alternatives available and to minimize exposure to estate taxes.
It is not necessary to have a substantial net worth before considering your estate plan. Having a will makes the designations and dispositions which satisfy your specific interests and simplifies the process for those who remain to carry out your wishes. The appointment of an executor is the first way to simplify the process. If you have young children, then naming guardians to take over if both parents are gone is a critical planning element. Taking steps to circumvent the laws of intestacy, by which the state determines how to distribute your property, is normally a very desirable step. It should be every clients wish that the process of passing property is a simple and efficient as possible. The failure to plan properly leaves open many questions, adds complexity and probably results in distributions which would not have been preferred by the client.
Estate taxes have been driving estate planning for many years, and they continue to do so for substantial estates. There are well established mechanisms by which such taxes can be avoided, and such avoidance can easily save hundreds of thousand of dollars of tax. These plans typically involve trust instruments and gift planning. The benefits of planning are readily available to every client.
Trust instruments are frequently desirable even if estate tax avoidance is not a motivating factor. Trusts enable a client to determine the best use of assets during her lifetime and thereafter. Trusts are beneficial to provide for children, or to make funds available for others for a period of time and then pass the asset on to still others. Trusts can take ownership of insurance policies thereby removing the insurance proceeds from federal estate taxation under certain conditions. Trusts can provide charitable benefits during a client's lifetime and thereafter. Appropriate planning can make the most of the many tools available for carrying into effect a client's intentions as to the disposition of assets.
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