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What happens when you die? That could be an existential question as well as an important financial one. You need to consider who gets what when it comes to your property and ensure your loved ones don’t get caught off guard and left with nothing once you’re gone. As you navigate your necessary estate planning decisions, here are a few mistakes you’ll want to avoid….Continue reading….

By Jenny Cohen

Source: FinanceBuzz

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Estate planning or inheritance planning is the process of anticipating and arranging for the management of a person’s estate or net worth during the person’s life in preparation for future incapacity or death. The planning includes the bequest of assets to heirs, loved ones, and/or charity, and may include legal tax avoidance. Estate planning includes planning for incapacity, reducing or eliminating uncertainties over the administration of a probate, and maximizing the value of the estate by reducing taxes and other expenses.

The ultimate goal of estate planning can only be determined by the specific goals of the estate owner, and may be as simple or complex as the owner’s wishes and needs directs. Guardians are often designated for minor children and beneficiaries with incapacity.

Avoidance of income tax, gift tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and generation-skipping transfer tax plays a significant role in choosing the structure and vehicles used to create an estate plan. In the United States, assets left to a spouse who is a U.S. citizen or any qualified charity are not subject to U.S. Federal estate tax.

Assets left to any other heir, including the decedent’s children, may be taxed if that portion of the estate has a value in excess of the lifetime gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption amount. As of 2023, the federal exemption amount was $12,920,000. For a married couple, the combined exemption is $25,840,000.

One way to minimize or avoid U.S. Federal gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes is to distribute the property in incremental gifts during the person’s lifetime. Individuals may give away as much as $17,000 per year (in 2023) to another person without incurring gift tax or using up any of their lifetime exemption amount. Other tax-free alternatives include paying tuition expenses or medical expenses free of gift tax, but only if the payments are made directly to the educational institution or medical provider.

Other tax-advantaged alternatives to leaving property, outside of a will, include qualified or non-qualified retirement plans (e.g. 401(k) plans and IRAs) certain “trustee” bank accounts, transfer on death (or TOD) financial accounts, and life insurance proceeds. Because life insurance proceeds generally are not taxed for U.S. Federal income tax purposes, a life insurance trust could be used to pay estate taxes.

However, if the decedent holds any incidents of ownership like the ability to remove or change a beneficiary, the proceeds will be treated as part of decedent’s estate and generally will be subject to the U.S. Federal estate tax. For this reason, a trust vehicle often is used to own the life insurance policy. The trust must be irrevocable to avoid taxation of the life insurance proceeds, and it typically called an irrevocable life insurance trust (or ILIT).

Estate planning may involve a will, trusts, beneficiary designations, powers of appointment, property ownership (for example, joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, tenancy in common, tenancy by the entirety), gifts, and powers of attorney (specifically a durable financial power of attorney and a durable medical power of attorney). More sophisticated estate plans may cover deferring or decreasing inheritance taxes or business succession.

Wills are a common estate planning tool, and are usually the simplest device for planning the distribution of an estate. It must be created and executed in compliance with the laws of the jurisdiction where it is created. If probate proceedings occur in a different jurisdiction, it is important to ensure that the will complies with the laws of that jurisdiction, or that the jurisdiction will follow the provisions of a valid out-of-state will even if those provisions might be invalid for a will executed in that jurisdiction.

A trust may be used as an estate planning tool to direct the distribution of assets after the person who creates the trust passes away or becomes incapacitated. Trusts may be used to provide for the distribution of funds for the benefit of minor children or developmentally disabled children. For example, a spendthrift trust may be used to prevent wasteful spending by a spendthrift child, or a special needs trust may be used for developmentally disabled children or adults.

Trusts offer a high degree of control over management and disposition of assets. Furthermore, certain types of trust provisions can provide for the management of wealth for several generations past the settlor. Typically referred to as dynasty planning, these types of trust provisions allow for the protection of wealth for several generations after a person’s death.

An estate plan may include the creation of advance directives, which are documents that direct what will happen to a person’s personal care if the person becomes legally incapacitated. For example, an estate plan may include a healthcare proxy, durable power of attorney, and living will.

After widespread litigation and media coverage surrounding the Terri Schiavo case, estate planning attorneys often advise clients to also create a living will, which is a form of an advance directive. Specific final arrangements, such as whether to be buried or cremated, are also often part of estate plan documents.

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