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Common Trusts: Parenting Beyond the Grave

Parents strive to make their children feel equally valued as reflected in the fact that, when setting up an estate plan, parents typically divide their accounts and property equally among their children. But while parents strive to treat their children the same, they simultaneously acknowledge that children have different needs at different times. And these needs do not always correlate with perfectly equal dollar amounts. Should something happen to you and your accounts and property pass to your minor children in equal shares, there may not be enough money for each individual child’s expenses. Almost certainly, one child will require more funds than another. Instead of simply dividing your accounts and property equally among your children, you can place accounts and property in what is known as a pot trust or common trust with instructions for your trustee on how to spend the money and property on behalf of all the beneficiaries.

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Statements of Intent or Purpose in Estate Planning Documents

The reasons you, as a trustmaker, create a trust are certainly special and important to you, but your intent or purpose for creating a trust can also have significant legal ramifications. For this reason, it is often critical that a trustmaker express in writing their purpose for creating the trust. There are essentially two different ways of documenting a trustmaker’s intent—each have slightly different purposes, and sometimes both are generally called a “statement of intent.” Let us examine each of them.

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QTIP Trust – Will My Spouse Get What They Need?

A qualified terminable interest property (QTIP) trust is an estate planning tool that married couples can use to minimize uncertainty about the future and maximize certain tax advantages. Since no one can predict how much they will own at the time of their death, which spouse will die first, whether the surviving spouse will remarry, or what the estate tax rate will be when they die, a QTIP trust can help deal with and minimize these uncertainties without the need for a crystal ball.

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Qualified Personal Residence Trust: What Is It and When Should You Consider One?

Americans have enjoyed historically high estate tax exemption rates for most of the last twenty years. Such high exemption amounts have kept many of them from needing to seek out more advanced estate planning strategies to avoid estate taxes, which have been as high as 60 percent during those same years. However, it is uncertain what the estate tax exemption amounts and rates will be in the future. The current federal administration may decide to reduce the estate tax exemption amounts in an effort to raise revenue to fund many of the high-cost government programs being implemented today. Therefore, for individuals and families whose wealth is significant enough that their estates could be subject to estate taxes, it can be important to be aware of some of the tried-and-true strategies for reducing their taxable estate’s value to avoid paying more tax at death than absolutely necessary. One strategy is the qualified personal residence trust (QPRT).

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Untangling Tangled Titles: Homeownership, Property Deeds, and Estate Planning

If you are currently living in a property that you inherited but the deed has not been transferred into your name, you may be surprised to learn that, under the law, you are technically not the owner. This legal situation is known as “tangled title.” A tangled title negatively impacts a property’s current occupant in a number of ways. It can also harm generational wealth and even contribute to fraud. For many households, most of their wealth is tied up in their home. However, until a tangled title is resolved, you cannot take full advantage of your home’s value. Untangling a tangled title is often a complicated legal process that requires attorney assistance. There are costs, but the costs of not straightening out a title could be much higher in the long term.

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Slayer Statutes: Preventing Killers from Profiting from Their Crimes

Most states have laws that prevent someone who has intentionally killed another individual from being able to inherit any property from their victim.[1] In general, these laws are referred to as “slayer statutes” and are designed to prevent the patently unjust outcome of a killer inheriting property as the result of such a heinous crime.

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All Good Things Must Come to an End: Reasons a Trust Might Terminate

Nothing lasts forever. While trusts can stretch across generations and keep valuable money and property within a family, no trust has unlimited funds or an interminable time horizon. Every trust, at some point, will end. The reasons why a trust might terminate can vary, but in general, termination occurs because the trust has accomplished its purpose, is no longer economically feasible, has distributed all of its property, is revoked, or is dissolved by the court because of a dispute or an illegality.

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What Happens to Your Social Media Accounts at Your Death?

According to Statista, more than 295 million people in the United States use social media.[1] If you are an avid social media user, have you considered what will happen to your accounts when you die? If you have spent time creating, uploading, and sharing content, it is important to take a look now at what will happen after you pass away so you can determine your content’s future.

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Are Family Limited Partnerships Under Attack?

A popular estate planning tool that has long been used effectively may be facing new challenges under the current administration in Washington, DC. The family limited partnership (FLP) is an estate planning tool that allows families not only to transfer significant amounts of their wealth to succeeding generations while reducing estate, gift, and income tax liabilities but also to achieve several other important estate planning goals.

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