Parents often decide to leave one child a specific asset and provide an equalizing cash bequest to the other. This article explores how specific bequests may provide unintended results.
Estate Planning
What Is Protected From Creditors?
The executors are settling an estate — but the decedent owes money. What can the creditors take, and what is reserved for the inheritors? There is no easy answer, and a variety of federal and state laws apply. To start with, retirement accounts that qualify under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act are generally protected from […]
When Your Brother Doesn’t Do His Job? Who Can You Turn to?
Most Estate Planning attorneys will tell you that creating an Estate Plan helps prevent litigation after death. That statement needs a caveat. Most of the time, a properly created Estate Plan will prevent litigation. As this article demonstrates, sometimes, even with an Estate Plan, the family ends up in litigation.
Avoiding an Audit
The Internal Revenue Service recently released its Strategic Operating Plan. In that plan, the Service indicated that it planned to conduct more audits, especially on the wealthiest taxpayers. Hearing that you are facing an audit is enough to strike fear into even the most stoic of individuals. No one is immune from audit; however, taxpayers following certain steps are less likely to be audited than those who don’t.
A Pet Trust Can Facilitate Senior Companionship
You may face some challenges when you reach an advanced age, and loneliness is one of them. Many people lose their spouses, close friends, and other family members. This leaves a significant void that can reverberate on multiple levels. The dynamic is magnified when you no longer work so you have no interactions with coworkers. […]
Is There a California Estate Tax?
There is a federal estate tax that can be a factor regardless of your location in the United States, but is there a California state estate tax? This is a question that is frequently asked, and we will provide the answer in this post. The Unfortunate Dozen State-level estate taxes are the exception rather than […]
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