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Death
Tax Lives in Estate Repeal for Heir Who Must Sell Assets (Bloomberg.com
- 5/7/10)
Estate planners and their wealthy clients are in purgatory, struggling
with whether to spend tens of thousands of dollars to restructure
wills, only to have to spend even more if the law is changed again.
Estate planning under ordinary circumstances is expensive and complex.
The new environment poses unforeseen risks, such as potential heirs
finding themselves unintentionally disinherited if wills arent
properly rewritten. Others face new tax and accounting complications.
How
to Make a Trust an Account Owner of a 529 Plan (Morningstar
Advisor)
Most state qualified tuition programs permit a trust to be an account
owner of a 529 savings plan.
How
to Pass Down Your Family Vacation Retreat (Forbes - 6/10/10)
Here's how to protect your vacation retreat from the taxman and
intrafamily strains.
Lapsed
Federal Estate Tax Creates Couples Trap (Forbes - 7/21/10)
For estate tax planning purposes, married couples traditionally
use a planning technique known as "A-B" trusts. Upon the
death of the first to die, the original single trust is split into
two trusts, a "decedent's trust" or "tax credit trust"
(A) and a "survivor's trust" (B). The decedent's trust
is funded with the greatest value of assets on which there will
be no federal estate tax for the first to die. The remainder of
the couple's assets fund the survivor's trust. Done properly, at
the death of the second spouse, the assets in the decedent's trust
go to the children, with no taxes due, since they technically passed
to the next generation under the estate tax exemption of the first
spouse who died. In this way, the couple is still able to take advantage
of the estate tax credit granted to each individual spouse.
Leaving
Your Roth IRA to the Kiddies (Wall Street Journal - 5/1/10)
So you have decided that taxes have nowhere to go but up, and you
are converting your traditional IRA to a Roth. But what happens
if you die when your grandchildren are still young?
Retirement
Planning Calculators (LexisNexis - 7/30/10)
A recent article by syndicated columnist Mark Miller discusses popular
retirement calculators and flaws that could lead to serious miscalculations
when planning for retirement.
The
Dangers of DIY Estate Planning (US News - 6/29/10)
Every year, thousands of consumers bypass lawyers and create their
own wills, powers of attorney, and other estate planning documents
with the help of online tools and books. As one might expect, lawyers
don't like this do-it-yourself approach. They say it breeds mistakes,
since when it comes to legal issues, one size never fits all. Do
they have a valid point, or are they just trying to protect their
own livelihoods?
Trust
as Beneficiary of IRA is a Popular Strategy (Wall Street Journal
- 8/29/09)
Answers the question: My wife and I are both over 65 and are doing
some estate planning. Can I transfer funds from a traditional IRA
to a trust without immediately being taxed? What would be the tax
consequences of making the trust the beneficiary of my IRA?
Using
Annuities for Long-Term Care Planning (Elder Law Weblog - 9/23/08)
Insurance agents and financial institutions often advertise annuities
as the perfect way to generate retirement income. While annuities
can be a valuable retirement tool, if you are buying an annuity
as part of a Medi-Cal planning strategy, you need to fully understand
what you are getting.
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