Nearly everyone has a digital presence these days, but many people fail to consider their digital assets when designing their estate plan. As a result, loved ones of someone who has passed away often face great difficulties in trying to access, collect, maintain, or close their digital accounts. After addressing…
With a Google account, you have options to control your data and the tools to manage your account – and you can also tell Google how to manage this account as part of your estate plan. Google accounts and apps are used for a wide variety of purposes, including email,…
A number of well-known celebrities who were worth millions, including Princess Diana, Prince, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, and Kurt Cobain, have passed away in recent years without an up-to-date estate plan or without any estate plan at all. As a result, lengthy and stressful legal battles were fought over their…
Do you need a professional trustee? There has been more of a spotlight on legacy planning and the need to get our estate plans in order during the last year. Along with the prospect of a lower estate tax exemption and an aging baby boomer population, 2021 is the perfect…
Estate planning attorneys saw a lot of 2020 year-end gifting. Many people are trying to plan for the possibility of some of the previous administration’s reforms being rolled back – especially the estate tax lifetime exemption (currently set at $11,000,000, adjusted for inflation) now that Biden has been elected president…
Last week I wrote about beneficiary designations, and today I will finish writing on that topic and talk about different ways these designations may be set. In the case of many contracts, as well as a will or trust, you can pre-determine how assets might be divided if one or…
When it comes to estate planning, one item that can often be forgotten or overlooked but can also be easily remedied is updating your beneficiary designations. Taking an hour of your time now to look these over can ensure you have a say in what happens to these funds when…
The beginning of any new year is a good time to reflect, look forward, and plan for the future – especially this year with a pandemic that has made self-reflection that much more important. So many things have changed, including things we took for granted or overlooked before now. We…
There is no one-size-fits-all tax planning strategy, especially this year with so many new factors and uncertainties. The current pandemic has had a great impact on all of us as it has brought mortality to the forefront of our minds and prompted a lot of people to review estate planning…
Everything can go more smoothly when tailored to fit an individual’s needs. This is especially true of estate planning, as Carol Ann Fey, of counsel at Artz, Dewhirst & Wheeler in Columbus, and Mary Eileen Vitale, principal at HW & Co. CPAs & Advisors in Beachwood, explain: “The reason (to…