Young and Ill, without Advance Directives
When you are a child, your parents serve as your decision makers. They have ultimate say in where you go to school, what extracurricular activities you partake in and where, ...
8 Things to Consider When Selecting a Caregiver for Your Senior Parent
As a child of a senior citizen, you are faced with many choices in helping to care for your parent. You want the very best care for your mother or ...
Senior Citizens Comprise Growing Demographic of Bankruptcy Filers
It’s called your “golden years” but for many seniors and baby boomers, there is no gold and retirement savings are too often insufficient to maintain even basic living standards of ...
Who Should Be Your Successor Trustee?
If you have a revocable living trust, you probably named yourself as trustee so you can continue to manage your own financial affairs, but eventually someone will need to step ...
How to Choose a Trustee
When you establish a trust, you name someone to be the trustee. A trustee basically does what you do right now with your financial affairs—collect income, pay bills and taxes, ...
Protecting Your Legacy with Estate Tax Planning
You spend your whole life building your legacy but sadly, that is not always enough. Without careful estate tax planning, much of it could be lost to taxes or misdirected. ...
Joint Bank Accounts and Medicaid Eligibility
Like most governmental benefit programs, there are many myths surrounding Medicaid and eligibility for benefits. One of the most common myths is the belief that only 50% of the funds ...
Estate Planning: The Medicaid Asset Protection Trust
The irrevocable Medicaid Asset Protection Trust has proven to be a highly effective estate planning tool for many older Americans. There are many factors to consider when deciding whether a ...
Changing Uses for Bypass Trusts
Every year, each individual who dies in the U.S. can leave a certain amount of money to his or her heirs before facing any federal estate taxes. For example, in ...
What is Estate Tax Portability and How Does it Affect Me?
At the end of 2012, the entire country watched as major changes were made to income tax laws with the adoption of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA). ...