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People who have been temporarily displaced by the hurricanes might find that they need to adjust their estate plans. The U.S. has recently been hit by three large hurricanes.  People in Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico have all been displaced as they wait for their homes to be rebuilt. While much of the focus of media coverage has rightfully been placed on getting immediate relief to those people who need it and on getting homes rebuilt, hurricane victims who have temporarily relocated to anot...

One of the primary benefits of life insurance is that it is supposed to pay out immediately after the insured passes away.  That can’t be done if it is not clear who the beneficiary should be. Life insurance can be used in estate planning for several reasons.  One of the primary reasons it is often suggested is to provide beneficiaries with much needed cash while the rest of an estate gets settled. That does not always go smoothly, however, as a recent case involving MetLife illustrates. In th...

Taking care of elderly parents is a rewarding – and demanding – responsibility.  AARP’s CARECONNECTION, a resource specifically designed to help and support caregivers, offers the following strategies: Include your parents in all actions and discussions regarding their care, unless they are severely incapacitated. Be sure to establish limits so that they don’t have unrealistic expectations. Solicit help from family and friends, as well as distant relatives, friends of your parents, neighbors ...

One of the more difficult and important things to plan for in an estate is passing along copyrights. Copyright law is often opaque and not well known to the general public.  Most people have no idea what exactly it is that copyrights protect, how they are enforced, and how copyrights are passed along between generations. Someone might know, for example, that it is a copyright violation to download and distribute music someone else created.  On the other hand, they probably do not know that lia...

The estates of some early Bitcoin adopters have accidentally lost millions of dollars in virtual currency, merely because no one knew that the deceased had the property. Crypto currencies, also known as virtual or digital currencies, are becoming increasingly popular.  Billions of dollars in various currencies are owned by people all over the world. The majority of people, however, still have no idea what these currencies are or how they work.  That has proven to be a major problem for many es...

One issue animating the debate over the estate tax is who it is that pays the tax. One White House advisor reportedly has a colorful answer for that. One of the many changes that President Trump would like to see in the federal tax code is the elimination of the estate tax, which Democrats have traditionally opposed. To get any tax reform passed, it appears that a few Democrats in Congress will be needed to vote for it. White House advisor Gary Cohn recently met with a few ...

Many people make an estate planning mistake by giving their homes to their children to avoid probate. People who have heard horror stories about the probate process almost always want to avoid probate in their own estates.  There are good and bad ways to do that. One common bad way to avoid probate is to give a home to a child while the parents are still alive.  This is an especially bad idea if the parents are still living in the home. It seems simple enough.  All that needs to be done is to ...

As Congress debates President Trump's promised tax reforms, including eliminating the estate tax, it is proving difficult for the administration to bring everybody together on an agreement. In case you were not paying attention this spring as Congress debated repealing Obamacare, a review of the process that unfolded over health care might be helpful to understand what is unfolding with tax reform. In the House of Representatives the repeal of Obamacare was initially stalled because moderate R...

If you do not take the required minimum disbursements out of your retirement accounts annually, you could face stiff tax penalties. Some people do not understand the bargain that’s made with the government at the time they put money into their retirement accounts. For qualified accounts, money can be put into retirement accounts on a pre-tax basis.  No income tax needs to be paid on that money. Many people think this is done to encourage people to save for retirement and to invest.  However, t...

While Americans wait to see what Congress will do with tax reform, the Secretary of the Treasury's wife might have imperiled some planned reforms. Millions of Americans are currently keeping their estate and financial plans in a sort of limbo, waiting to see what tax reforms will come out of Congress this autumn. Potential changes to the estate tax, gift tax, capital gains tax, deductions, corporate taxes and more could all have great impact on the estate plans of Americans. These tax changes ...