Everyone who has a revocable living trust has named a trustee of their trust. Typically you name yourself – which means that you have total control over all of the trust assets. Your trust will also name someone or some institution to administer it when you die – and ultimately make distribution of the trust [...]
“Harry” complained to me recently while reading over his estate planning documents. “These seem so…cold….so….’legal’…” he said slowly, searching for the right words.”I understand that these documents have to use this legal language so that my estate gets the benefits of the law, but I’m having a hard time knowing that these will be my [...]
With three daughters at home (two of them teenagers) you might think that our house is a continual mess of clothes, shoes, backpacks, electronic gear, school books, papers and what not.
And you would be right.
Patti and I are constantly badgering the kids to put everything in its place. Folded laundry goes in the dresser. Books [...]
Dr. David G. Kelley, a local marriage and family therapy consultant spoke to my clients last week and had something very interesting to say that I thought was worthy of sharing. You see, I hold annual maintenance workshops for my estate planning clients, occasionally inviting guest speakers to lecture on their area of expertise. Dr. [...]
A potential client called to ask a question that he claimed was “simple”. After a ten minute dissertation outlining a very complicated fact pattern – all I could say was, “It depends.”
He wasn’t very thrilled with my answer, and I can understand why. It would seem that lawyers sell more “Depends” than Walgreens and CVS [...]
When my family moved to Clearwater in 1980, my father joined forces with his brother in his brother’s accounting firm. Unfortunately, that partnership didn’t work out. The conflicts lead to family strife, and the ultimate dissolution of the business. Both brothers ended up working in separate firms, and to this day they don’t interact often, [...]
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. Attending this conference is like taking a full semester’s course load of post-graduate level tax law in [...]
A common question that I’m asked involves which expenses the estate can and should pay when a loved one dies. The question sounds something like this: “Craig, my father just died and I’m his personal representative. I’m flying in my wife and children, my sister and her family are all coming too. Can I pay [...]
Growing up, one of my favorite relatives was my Aunt Libby – who was a real pistol. Those of you who are Hoosiers and who ever frequented Libby’s Deli at the downtown Indianapolis City Market (Governor Bowen and Mayor Lugar could often be found at the lunch counter munching on Libby’s famous Bar-B-Q sandwiches) would [...]