Red Flags When Hiring a Professional to Be Your Trustee
Red Flags When Hiring a Professional to Be Your Trustee When you form a trust as part of your estate plan, one of the most important decisions you will make ...
Important Milestones You Can Incorporate in Your Estate Plan
Important Milestones You Can Incorporate in Your Estate Plan Life is full of contingencies. While some outcomes are relatively certain, other events are more difficult to predict. This uncertainty can ...
Three Tips for Overwhelmed Executors
Three Tips for Overwhelmed Executors While it is an honor to be named an executor in a person’s will, it can often be a sobering and daunting responsibility. Being an ...
Will Our Child Have to Handle Multiple Trusts After Our Deaths?
Will Our Child Have to Handle Multiple Trusts After Our Deaths? When a married couple creates an estate plan using a revocable living trust, they have the option of creating ...
When Rock Legends Pass Away: The Possible Fates of Meat Loaf’s $40 Million Estate
Meat Loaf, whose real name was Michael Lee Aday, passed away earlier this year at the age of seventy-four. The singer behind 1977’s Bat Out of Hell—one of the best-selling albums of all time—experienced ups and downs befitting his larger-than-life persona. He hit bottom with his 1983 bankruptcy but rode a 1990s career rebirth to newfound financial success. The musician, actor, and producer’s net worth was estimated to be $40 million at the time of his death in January 2022.
No Contribution Is Too Small
Most Americans strive to earn a decent-sized paycheck to support themselves and their families when they go to work. Stay-at-home parents, however, work to provide valuable nonfinancial contributions to their families everyday. They make sure that the home runs smoothly and that their family members have what they need to be successful and happy. If something were to happen to the stay-at-home parent, how would the family’s needs be met?
Yours, Mine, and Ours: How Including a Pour-Over Trust Can Simplify Your Planning
A number of married couples think about their accounts and property as “yours, mine, and ours,” especially if either or both spouses have gotten or will be getting remarried, married ...
Changes to the FAFSA Form and What It Means for Grandparents
For grandparents who want to leave a legacy to their grandchildren, the gift of a 529 college savings plan is an option. Not only can opening a 529 plan account ...
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.
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.