If you are prone to procrastination when it comes to estate planning one thing that may motivate you to take action is to ask yourself who will suffer if you were to die without making any preparations in advance.

The fact is that your loved ones will be left behind to fend for themselves if you pass away without making provisions for them.

You may think that you are still relatively young and that you have plenty of time ahead of you. However, there are no guarantees and people pass away when they are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s each and every day.

Consider the case of the Swedish author Stieg Larsson. He died at the young age of 50 because of a heart attack back in 2004. Larsson wrote the book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the popular crime novel that was turned into a major motion picture.

The writer did not have an estate plan in place when he passed away. According to reports his net worth was somewhere in the vicinity of $40 million. His closest blood relatives were his father and his brother but he had lived with the same woman for 32 years and was living with her at the time of his death.

The matter played itself out within the legal arena, and in the end Larsson’s girlfriend received nothing and his fortune was awarded to his father and brother.

Situations such as these demonstrate why it is so important to plan ahead, even if you have not yet achieved senior citizen status. If you are currently unprepared, right now would be a good time to set up an appointment to speak with a good Redlands CA estate planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are planning your estate you have to a lot of things to consider, and one of these would be the personal proclivities of the individuals who will be receiving inheritances after you pass away.

You may have someone on your inheritance list who is not the greatest money manager. When you are preparing for the distribution of your assets after your death you may take pause before you give this individual a large lump sum of money with no controls attached.

He or she may burn through the money very quickly and be left in a bad situation later on. And, you may be concerned about the possibility of creditors attaching a good portion of the inheritance.

You can take action to assuage these types of concerns by making the person in question the beneficiary of a spendthrift trust. With these trusts the trustee distributes monetary resources in accordance with the trust agreement. It is the trustee who handles the funds that have been placed in the trust, not the beneficiary.

This trustee can be a professional entity such as the trust department of a bank or a trust company. If you engage such an entity to handle the trust resources you can be certain that they will be optimally invested and administered in accordance with your wishes.

To learn more about spendthrift trusts and other estate planning vehicles take action right now to arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced San Bernardino estate planning attorney.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

During our current era a significant percentage of marriages end in divorce. Most of the people who do get divorced eventually remarry, and in the majority of these cases one or both of the individuals entering the marriage has children from a previous marriage or marriages.

This can present the need for some advanced estate planning techniques to be implemented. Even though you may trust your new spouse implicitly you really have no guarantees about how he or she will proceed after you pass away. For this reason you may want to take legal steps be absolutely certain that your children are provided for come what may.

This can be achieved by first entering into a prenuptial agreement that delineates the personal property of each individual entering the marriage. You could then create a qualified terminable interest property trust to provide for both your spouse and your children.

To provide a simple explanation, with these trusts your spouse can benefit from the assets placed in the trust throughout the rest of his or her life without having direct access to the principal (unless of course you make some access available when drawing up the trust).

However, your spouse has no control over who inherits the trust after his or her death. After your spouse passes away your named beneficiaries assume ownership of the resources that are remaining in the trust. These would presumably be your children.

If you are interested in the possibility of creating a qualified terminable interest property trust simply take a moment pick up the phone to arrange for a consultation with a good San Bernardino estate planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Wading through all the terminology that is utilized in estate planning circles can be somewhat confusing to the uninitiated. With this in mind we would like to take a look at living wills, last wills, and living trusts.

Everyone knows what a last will is used for. This is the most widely executed estate planning document, and of course it facilitates the transfer of your financial assets to your loved ones after you pass away.

The next two documents we will examine are sometimes confused with one another. Some people are aware of the fact that there is a way to set aside assets for distribution to your loved ones while you are still alive. They assume that this document must be a living will, but in fact they are probably thinking about living trusts.

You can manage the assets placed in a living trust while you’re still alive, but you name a beneficiary or beneficiaries who would benefit from the trust after your death or upon your incapacitation should you choose to include an incapacity contingency.

Living wills have nothing to do with the transfer of monetary resources. With a living will you state your preferences with regard to medical procedures that you would allow or disallow in the event of your incapacitation.

This a brief look at three commonly utilized estate planning tools. The best way to gain a comprehensive understanding of all of the instruments that are available to you would be to sit down and discuss your unique situation with a good Redlands CA estate planning attorney.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you are exposed to the federal estate tax it is going to be necessary for you to take action to gain tax efficiency. To determine whether or not you are exposed to the tax you must inventory your assets and compare the number that you arrive at with the estate tax exclusion amount.

At the current time the first $5  million that you have can pass to your heirs free of the estate tax. Anything above that is subject to the 35% tax. And, just for your information these figures are set to change at the end of this year, and the change is not for the better. Beginning in 2013 the estate tax exclusion is going down to $1 million and the rate of the tax is scheduled to rise to 55%.

It is important to note that there is a gift tax in place that is unified with the estate tax, so if you give gifts while you are still alive to people who would otherwise be inheriting the resources they are taxable. However, some people will create family limited partnerships to divert resources to their loved ones with a tax discount.

To explain very briefly, you fund the partnership and act as the general partner. You have full and absolute rights of marketability and control. When you are creating the partnership you also name a limited partner or limited partners, and these people must be family members. You give them a certain percentage of the partnership as a gift but they have no control.

This gift is taxable, but the taxable amount of the gift is reduced because of the fact that the limited partner has no control over the resources. The amount of the discount will vary depending on the nature of the assets in question.

Family limited partnerships can be a good tool for transferring assets from one generation to the next. To learn more about them, take a moment to get in touch with a good San Bernardino estate planning lawyer to set up an informative consultation.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The federal estate tax is something that you have to be aware of when you are evaluating your legacy.

When most people think about any tax, they expect some reasonable percentage that is more of a nuisance than a true threat. As a result, you may be shocked to hear that the current rate of the federal estate tax is 35% and if this is not attention-getting enough, the rate of the estate tax is scheduled to rise to 55% at the end of this year.

When you are inventorying your assets in an effort to determine whether or not your estate is in taxable territory, you should understand the fact that the value of life insurance policies does count as part of your estate. If you were to simply allow the proceeds to be transferred directly to a beneficiary the transfer could be taxable.

As a result, a lot of people will direct insurance company proceeds into a vehicle called an irrevocable life insurance trust. Since the beneficiary doesn’t technically own the assets he or she can benefit from the trust without facing estate tax exposure.

Let’s say that your spouse is the primary beneficiary of the trust and your children are the secondary beneficiaries. Your spouse can benefit from the trust throughout his or her life. But when your spouse dies, your children become the beneficiaries and no tax is levied because your spouse didn’t technically own the assets.

To learn more about how an ILIT may provide you with estate tax efficiency, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good Redlands, CA Estate Planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

One of the reasons why it is important to sit down and discuss your legacy with a good San Bernardino Estate Planning lawyer is because different situations call for different strategies.

There is no particular reason why the average layperson would have any type of in-depth understanding of the legal intricacies of estate planning. You may find yourself scratching your head as you try to find a solution when in fact an attorney could immediately recommend the appropriate course of action.

With the above having been stated, people who are partners in small businesses can be faced with an estate planning dilemma of sorts. If you are a partner in a business your share may represent a significant chunk of your estate. But it is not liquid so you can’t distribute its value among multiple heirs.

In addition, even if you wanted to leave your share to a single individual your partners may not be happy with his or her involvement in the business. This heir could also sell the share to the highest bidder forcing your partners to deal with the buyer whether they liked it or not.

Situations such as these are often handled by the creation of buy-sell agreements. The simple buy-sell agreement called the cross purchase plan is implemented by each partner taking out a life insurance policy on every other. When one of the co-owners dies the policy proceeds are combined. This sum is then utilized to purchase the share in the business that was owned by the deceased partner from his for her family.

Succession planning is important for people who are small business owners. If you would like to get started making preparations for the future, take action and set up an informative consultation with an experienced San Bernardino estate planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

While there are some rather complicated legal instruments that are used in the field of estate planning there are some relatively simple solutions that can be implemented as well. One of these would be the utilization of payable on death or transfer on death accounts, but you have to be aware of the limitations of these accounts.

When you create a payable on death account at a bank or a brokerage you include the selection of a beneficiary. This individual would assume ownership of the resources that remain in the account at the time of your death. The transfer of assets would take place outside of probate enabling the beneficiary to receive his or her inheritance in a fast and efficient manner.

On the downside, these accounts do nothing to provide estate tax efficiency. You have full control of the assets while you are still alive and you are the direct owner of the account so these resources are considered to be a part of your estate for estate tax purposes.

Another thing to consider would be the possibility of incapacity. These accounts are only accessible by the beneficiary in the event of your death, so the funds would be unavailable to the beneficiary should you become incapacitated.

These are a couple of reasons why you may want to take pause before utilizing payable on death accounts to transfer assets to your loved ones. To learn more and explore your alternatives, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good San Bernardino estate planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

One of the issues that is a source of great concern within the elder law community is that of access to long-term care. Perhaps the most striking demographic statistic of our time is that people who are at least 85 years of age are the fastest growing age group in the country. Clearly, when you reach an advanced age it is very possible that you are going to need living assistance.

Many people go forward with the misconception that they don’t have to worry about the matter because if they need long-term care Medicare will pay for it. In fact, the Medicare program does not pay for long-term care so this is something that you are going to have to budget for in advance.

How expensive is long-term care? Every year the people at MetLife do a survey to get a feel for the state of long-term care costs in the United States. They have recently released their 2011 figures and they would indicate that long-term care costs are extremely high and on the rise.

The average daily charge for a private room in a nursing home in the United States in 2011 was $239 which is a 4.4% increase over the 2010 figure of $229. If you do the math this factors out to $87235 annually.

This is a lot of money for many people, so it is important to develop a long-term plan to address these potential expenses. If you are ready to do so, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a licensed San Bernardino elder law attorney.  At the Elder and Disability Law Firm, our attorney and government benefit professionals know how to shelter your hard-earned assets by getting government benefit to help pay for assisted living costs and care in a skilled nursing home.  We can protect your homes and hard-earned assets.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The estate tax is something that is not fully understood by a lot of people, but when you find out the facts you can’t help but be a bit taken aback by just how harsh it can be.

At the present time the maximum rate of the estate tax is 35% and the exclusion is $5.12 million. These figures are in place due to a tax relief measure that was passed at the end of 2010. This piece of legislation is going to sunset at the end of this year. When it does, the estate tax rate is going up to 55%, and the exclusion is going down to just $1 million.

If you were to own a piece of property that was worth more than the estate tax exclusion your family may be forced to sell that property just to pay the estate tax. This was a factor recently when the owner of the Oakland Raiders football franchise Al Davis passed away.

According to Forbes, the Raiders are valued at well over $700 million. Davis is said to have died owning 47% of the club. Because of the huge estate tax bill that would be presented many observers assumed that the Davis estate would have to sell the Raiders.

In fact, due to intelligent estate planning Al Davis was able to keep the Raiders in the family. His surviving spouse and only son are running the ball club.

The estate tax can truly play havoc with your legacy. There are however steps that you can take to mitigate or eliminate your exposure. If you would like to explore them, simply pick up the phone to arrange for a consultation with a good Redlands CA estate planning lawyer.

The Elder & Disability Law Firm is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.