Planning for your family's future made easy!
If you're like most people, you want to be sure that, once you've passed on, no more of your property and money will be lost to the government than is absolutely necessary. You want to know that you'll be leaving your heirs your assets and not your debts. You want to be absolutely certain that your will is ship-shape, your insurance policies are structured properly, and that every conceivable hole in your estate plan has been filled. And most of all, you'd like to do all of this without driving yourself crazy trying to make sense of the complicated jargon, jumble of paperwork, and welter of state and federal laws involved in the estate planning process.
Written by two estate planning pros, this simple, easy-to-use guide takes the pain out of planning for your ultimate financial future. In plain English, the authors walk you step-by-step through everything you need to know to:
* Put your estate into order
* Minimize estate taxes
* Write a proper will
* Deal with probate
* Set up trusts
* Make sure your insurance policies are structured properly
* Plan for special situations, like becoming incompetent and pet care
* Craft a solid estate plan and keep it up-to-date
Don't leave the final disposition of your estate up to chance and the whims of bureaucrats. Estate Planning For Dummies gives you the complete lowdown on:
* Figuring out what you're really worth
* Mastering the basics of wills and probate
* Using will substitutes and dodging probate taxes
* Setting up protective trusts, charitable trusts, living trusts and more
* Making sense of state and federal inheritance taxes
* Avoiding the generation skipping transfer tax
* Minimizing all your estate-related taxes
* Estate planning for family businesses
* Creating a comprehensive estate plan
Straightforward, reader-friendly, easy-to-use, Estate Planning For Dummies is the ultimate guide to planning your family's future.
Autorentext
N. Brian Caverly, Esq., is an attorney-at-law emphasizing estate planning and elder law. Jordan S. Simon is Vice President of Asset Management at Venture West, a Tucson-based investment firm.
Zusammenfassung
Planning for your family's future made easy!
If you're like most people, you want to be sure that, once you've passed on, no more of your property and money will be lost to the government than is absolutely necessary. You want to know that you'll be leaving your heirs your assets and not your debts. You want to be absolutely certain that your will is ship-shape, your insurance policies are structured properly, and that every conceivable hole in your estate plan has been filled. And most of all, you'd like to do all of this without driving yourself crazy trying to make sense of the complicated jargon, jumble of paperwork, and welter of state and federal laws involved in the estate planning process.
Written by two estate planning pros, this simple, easy-to-use guide takes the pain out of planning for your ultimate financial future. In plain English, the authors walk you step-by-step through everything you need to know to:
- Put your estate into order
- Minimize estate taxes
- Write a proper will
- Deal with probate
- Set up trusts
- Make sure your insurance policies are structured properly
- Plan for special situations, like becoming incompetent and pet care
- Craft a solid estate plan and keep it up-to-date
Don't leave the final disposition of your estate up to chance and the whims of bureaucrats. Estate Planning For Dummies gives you the complete lowdown on:
- Figuring out what you're really worth
- Mastering the basics of wills and probate
- Using will substitutes and dodging probate taxes
- Setting up protective trusts, charitable trusts, living trusts and more
- Making sense of state and federal inheritance taxes
- Avoiding the generation skipping transfer tax
- Minimizing all your estate-related taxes
- Estate planning for family businesses
- Creating a comprehensive estate plan
Straightforward, reader-friendly, easy-to-use, Estate Planning For Dummies is the ultimate guide to planning your family's future.
Inhalt
Introduction 1
Who Needs This Book 1
How to Use This Book 2
How This Book is Organized 2
Part I: Estate Planning Fundamentals 2
Part II: Where There's a Will, There's a Way 3
Part III: Matters of Trust 4
Part IV: Life, Death, and Taxes 4
Part V: Estate Planning for Family Businesses 5
Part VI: Crafting a Comprehensive Estate Plan 5
Part VII: The Part of Tens 6
Icons Used in This Book 6
Part I: Estate Planning Fundamentals 7
Chapter 1: Congratulations: You Have an Estate! 9
What Is an Estate? 10
The basics: Definitions and terminology 10
Property types 13
Types of property interest 14
Why You Need to Plan Your Estate 17
Why Your Estate-Planning Goals Are Different from Your Neighbors' 19
Why Estate-Planning Lingo Is Not Really a Foreign Language 21
The Critical Path Method to Planning Your Estate 22
Getting Help with Your Estate Planning 24
How to make sure your team of advisers is FAIL safe 25
Working with Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) and other financial planning professionals 26
Knowing what to expect from your accountant for your estate planning 28
Your insurance agent and your estate 28
Working with your attorney 29
Chapter 2: Bean Counting Figuring Out What You're Worth 31
Calculating the Value of Your Real Property 32
Your home on the range 32
That timeshare in Timbuktu and other hideaways 33
Your investments as a landlord 33
Your real estate partnerships 33
Calculating the Value of Everything Else: Your Personal Property 34
Tangible personal property items you can touch 34
Intangible personal property bank accounts, stocks and bonds 36
Dead Reckoning: Subtracting Your Debts from Your Assets 37
Giving Gifts Throughout Your Life to Reduce Your Estate's Value 38
Calculating Adjustments in Your Estate's Value Due to Life Changes 39
Part II: Where There's a Will, There's a Way 41
Chapter 3: Understanding the Basics of Wills 43
Planning for Your Will 44
Getting to Know the Different Types of Wills 45
Simple wills 46
Other types of wills 47
Choosing Your Will's Contents 48
Opening clauses 49
Giving clauses 49
Ending clauses 54
Safeguarding Your Will 54
Changing, Amending, and Revoking Your Will 55
Why you may need to change your will when something happens 56
Ways to change your will 57
Protecting Your Loved Ones from Your Unloved Ones 58
Figuring Out Your Will Status 59
Testacy: When you've nailed everything down 59
Intestacy: When you die with zero willpower 60
Partial intestacy: When the vultures start circling 61
Chapter 4: Tied Hands and Helping Hands: What You Can and Can't Do with Your Will 63
Making Your Peace with Statutes That Affect Your Will 64
Identifying Statutes that Your Will Can Change 64
Abatement there's not enough in the cupboard for everyone 65
Ademption some property is missing 67
Antilapse someone dies before you do 68
Divorce high noon at Splitsville 68
Simultaneous death sorry, but we have to talk about it 69
Living (and Dying) with the Laws that Your…