Leaving Money to Your Nieces and Nephews – Read This First

Picture this scenario…

You’ve worked hard, saved and managed to accumulate some wealth.

You’re not a robber baron by any means but you’re comfortable. Your siblings haven’t fared as well and you want to make sure that their children have the benefit of a solid higher education. With no children of your own, it seems the right thing to do.

What does this have to do with estate planning?
Nothing. I just like it.
So you set up 529 college education savings plans for your nieces and nephews, make them the beneficiaries, and mention everything in your will.

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Please Don’t Take Estate Planning Advice from Facebook!

Recently, a post on Facebook by a young mom who simply wanted to be of help to people in encouraging them to get their estate planning in order went viral. As of this morning, July 6, 2022, the post, purporting to show people how to do a DIY estate plan had over 69,000 shares with […]

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There is No Such Thing as Emergency Estate Planning

Folks. I hate to break it to you. If you’re calling around frantically looking for an estate planner, you’re too late. Every time I get a call from someone looking for an attorney who can respond that day or even that week, someone is screwed—either the person in need or their family. There is no […]

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Don’t Let the Tax Tail Wag the Family Dog

Estate planners as a whole are trained to and skilled at balancing a plethora of variables in a family’s circumstances deploying legal principals, rules, regulations, and statutes. It’s a very tricky job, I can tell you. For every action, there are are a set of effects to deal with as a consequence of that action. Our […]

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On the Matter of Inheritance

Inheritance is never about the money. Never has been, never will be. It’s about what our children are inheriting in terms of our “stuff” meaning our singular gifts and our emotional/psychological/ spiritual baggage. How well we have harvested that which belongs to us as sentient beings on a bountiful planet in a nondescript arm of […]

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