Someone close to you dies and you are now the executor of the estate. You’ve never been in this position before and if you’re like many of my clients who have been faced with settling an estate, you’re a little panicked by the whole prospect—you’re staring into the great...
Many of us who have lived a while have been conditioned to think that estate taxes are the number one issue when creating an estate plan—how do you avoid them; how do you reduce them? But in 2020, the first $11.58 million of a taxable estate is free from...
Nobody has a crystal ball, but it’s certain that the American landscape is changing and the change is driven by the Millennial generation. Millennials are changing attitudes, workplaces, work ethics, what’s acceptable and what’s not. They’re driven more by technology than relationship. They see things from a different perspective...
Tom
Petty is in good company, not just as a rock-n-roll legend, but as another star
whose estate is in turmoil. The plethora of lawsuits are Free Fallin’ as
Petty’s wife, Dana, and the two daughters from a previous marriage, Adria and
Annakim, fight over control of the $95 million he left behind.
Unlike
Aretha...
You’ve done all the planning. Your trust is set up. You’re comfortable that your estate will be distributed exactly as you want. There’s just one more decision to make—an important one. Who should be the trustee?
James J. Ferraro, JD is vice president and legal counsel at Argent Trust Company....
“So, who do I want
to get my IRA? My spouse? My kids? But I don’t want to leave out the grandkids.
Oh, I’ll just fill it in later.”
You’d
be surprised how often that mental conversation goes on when someone is looking
at the beneficiary section of their IRA application. And for most,...
Death tax, inheritance tax, estate tax—call it what you will, they all mean that some government entity wants to put its hand in your pocket or your heirs’ pockets, after your demise.
On the federal level, the estate tax issue is not as big a deal as it was back...
For months now, we’ve been told by the media and by friends and neighbors about all the ways people have been affected by COVID-19. But here’s one you may not have heard about—losing the family home after the death of parents or grandparents who were receiving Medicaid benefits for...
