“Joe”, a widower, recently passed away owning an IRA and life insurance policies that named his daughter as a primary beneficiary, with his daughter’s children (Joe’s grandchildren) as contingent beneficiaries. Unfortunately, Joe’s daughter predeceased him, so his grandchildren stepped into the role as primary beneficiary.
When the children’s father went to collect the IRA and life [...]
I was very close to my great grandmother, whom I called “Bubby”. A framed picture in my home includes her image along with an 1890 silver dollar. She told me that her father handed her a silver dollar bearing the year of her birth when she arrived in America. She hadn’t seen him in many [...]
One of the most common statements we hear from folks is that “I don’t want to become a financial or emotional burden to my spouse and children.” Yet for many, the costs of either in-home nursing or for assisted living have the potential to far outweigh their life savings. That’s because the average monthly long [...]
For those of you who believe that you can write a will just effectively as an attorney and save a lot of money I bring to you the latest case from California that points out how important it is to know all of the law surrounding estates and trusts. Not using an attorney well versed [...]
Brenda and Eddie decided to marry – each had a prior marriage that ended in divorce, and each had children from those prior marriages. Brenda and Eddie met and lived in the Chicago suburbs at the time. After fifteen blissfully wedded years, both retired from their respective jobs to move to Florida. Since they both [...]
When you have a revocable trust, does that always mean that your estate will avoid the probate process when you die? You may be surprised to learn that the answer is “No”.
Why is that? First, let’s review what the probate process is. Many people think that “probate” means “taxes”. Probate is not a tax. Probate [...]
More than 90% of all U.S. businesses are family businesses, accounting for over 78% of our country’s employment and 150 of the Fortune 500 Companies. Yet only 30% of these family businesses will survive into the family’s second generation, 12% will make it to the third generation and only 4% survive to the fourth generation!
The [...]
Did you ever have a teacher that answered all of your questions with a question of her own? That’s the way I felt sitting in the nation’s largest annual professional estate planning conference held in Orlando last week. I’ve attended this conference for the better part of twenty years and haven’t seen anything like what [...]
I’m going to go off topic a little in today’s column. It being summer and all, sweltering here in Southwest Florida a few things come to mind. The first occurred just the other day while watching the presidential address about the oil spill. The President’s speech confirmed some feelings that I have had for a [...]
Since the tax law now allows us to more easily convert traditional IRA accounts into Roth IRAs – I’m frequently asked whether this is a good idea. While everyone’s situation is different which will lead to different conclusions, the approach one should take when deciding what might be in your best interest is the same. [...]