Estate Planning

You Can't Take It With You

You're gonna die. Someday. It's an inevitable truth, yet many of us spend a good portion of our lives denying it. Unless you stumbled onto this page in error, your willingness to read about estate planning suggests you're not as deluded about your mortality as the rest of the sorry bunch. Good for you. Because estate planning is important business when you have anyone important in your life and own any "thing" of value, sentimental and otherwise.

Estate planning is so much more than planning for death. There are actually three separate plans in an estate plan. The first is for accumulation of assets. If you don't have any assets, there's little need for further planning, after all. The second plan is to preserve assets once they are accumulated. Finally, the estate plan should include a plan for distribution of your assets to your heirs. And we're not talking fighting over the antique china at an estate sale.

If you're not sure this information applies to you, consider these reasons for estate planning:
It can help you avoid or reduce federal and state estate taxes, so more of your estate is passed on to your beneficiaries.

It allows you to say who gets what (to avoid family fights over your marble bust and other treasures, for instance).

It helps you to provide for your spouse and other remaining family members, and especially for any special concerns such as care of minors or handicapped family members.
It avoids delays in the distribution of your estate.

It reduces the cost of administering your estate (and you know how much it costs to shuffle paperwork nowadays).