Who needs estate planning advice?

Most people with assets or a family must execute a will. You may or may not need an estate plan, depending on the size of your estate and other factors. Learning more about estate taxes in your state of residence will help you evaluate if an estate plan is right for you and your family.

Estate planning is the

process of designating who will receive your assets in the event of death or disability.

Often done with the guidance of an attorney, one of the objectives is to ensure that heirs and beneficiaries receive assets in a way that manages and minimizes wealth taxes, gift taxes and other fiscal impacts. If you want your assets and loved ones to be protected when you can no longer do so, you'll need an estate plan. Without one, your heirs could face heavy tax burdens and courts could determine how your assets are divided and even who will be responsible for raising your children. Your estate administrator or executor will manage your will when you die.

It's important that you select a person who is responsible and in good mental shape to make decisions. Estate planning is about empowering people to make their own decisions about their future and the future of their loved ones. The following are 5 of the most common reasons people decide to create an estate plan. Estate planning is much more than deciding who to leave your things to, it's about taking care of your loved ones when you're no longer here.

Overall, there are two main reasons why you might want to protect your beneficiaries. First, the beneficiaries may be minors, in which case state law (and good practice) requires that a guardian or curator be appointed to oversee the child's needs and finances until they are of legal age (18 in New Mexico). However, as we all know, in some cases, adult beneficiaries also need protection, which brings us to the second main reason why people may want to consult an estate planning lawyer. In some cases, you may want to protect your adult beneficiary from poor decisions, outside influences, creditors, or even your spouse.

You can isolate your beneficiary's inheritance from an authoritative spouse or partner who could waste their inheritance or possibly take it up in a divorce. Then, we write custom documents that fit your needs and we'll help you with trust donation or funding issues, if that's part of your plan. Without a succession plan, courts often decide who gets their assets, a process that can take years, accumulate dues and become ugly. If you need to manage an inheritance through a probate in Pennsylvania, you'll probably get good help from the local court, including downloadable court forms.

Without a succession plan, you may need to have a guardian assigned to handle your affairs while you are alive, but unable to make decisions (and a person you didn't choose). A well-designed and executed estate plan can preserve assets, reduce inheritance taxes, and minimize or eliminate burdens placed on surviving family members and loved ones. Good estate planning seeks to avoid conflicts and ensure that your assets go to who you want and not what others want, avoid unnecessary inheritance costs and generate savings in inheritance tax. While everyone's situation and desires are different, it's important to consult an experienced estate planning lawyer who listens to your needs and can create a personalized plan that places you and your loved ones in the best possible position for the future.

Thorough planning means accounting for all your assets and ensuring that they are transferred as smoothly as possible to the people or entities that want to receive them. In addition, both married couples and individuals can use a variety of advanced estate planning techniques to make the inheritance or inheritance tax bill less burdensome or disappear altogether. The significant loss of wealth due to the payment of state and federal estate taxes or state inheritance taxes is a great motivation for many people to develop an estate plan. By not preparing an estate plan, he made the task of resolving his issues more complicated for his survivors.

It is essential for estate planning to transfer assets to heirs in order to create the lowest possible tax burden for them. Even a little bit of estate planning can allow couples to reduce much or even all of their federal and state estate taxes and state estate taxes. . .