It’s nearly always imperative to take a multi-faceted approach to estate planning as it involves the health and finances of multiple people. Ensuring that family and loved ones are taken care of in the way that benefits them most requires proper planning. One estate planning tool that is especially helpful…
Estate planning can be extremely confusing for a lot of people. In last week’s blog post, I addressed 5 common estate planning myths that often cost individuals and their loved ones time and money and add extra stress to their lives. Here are 5 more common estate planning myths: If…
If you find estate planning confusing, you’re not alone. Estate planning is one of the areas of financial planning with the most widespread confusion, and this can lead to costly mistakes and unnecessary loss of time and money as well as excess stress for people’s loved ones. Here are some…
With the current 2020 federal estate tax exemption amount being $11.58 million, a lot less people are needing to plan around this tax while mapping out their estate plan, and more planning can be focused on saving income taxes for family and heirs. Saving income and transfer taxes has always…
These days, our lives are surrounded by a lot of uncertainty and more people are thinking about their own mortality. Many people are choosing to review and update their estate plans during this challenging time. One thing that can easily trip up an estate plan is not paying attention to…
There are a lot of options in online services to draft estate planning documents, such as wills, trust, durable powers of attorney, and healthcare proxies. These online services can appear to be a very good option for most people. With these options available, is it necessary to use an estate…
As the digital world becomes a bigger part of our lives, many people have accumulated a lot of “digital assets,” which are non-physical assets that exist online in electronic format. Most estate planning clients preserve these assets either for their sentimental value or financial value. Those held for their sentimental…
Bank of America reached a settlement with the federal government over allegations of discriminatory policies against individuals with disabilities under guardianships. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bank of America maintained written policies that barred adults with disabilities under legal guardianships or conservatorships from obtaining mortgages or home equity…
The Social Security program, in addition to providing retirement benefits, also provides disability payments to those who are unable work because of a physical or mental condition. Unfortunately, the process that applicants (who are often older and poorer than most Americans) have to go through in order to start receiving…
Q:How long are wills good for? Can you renew them or do you have to make a new one? How about powers of attorney? A: Wills don’t expire or become invalid over time, so once you have created one, you won’t need to renew or replace it after a certain…