Articles Posted in Estate Planning

Creating a successful inheritance trust is not easy. In some situations even when a family believes that they have created a well-written inheritance trust, they have failed to address a number of complexities including those involving incompetency. This article reviews some of the elements that should be included in an inheritance trust. 

# 1 – Appropriate Beneficiary Designations

Appropriate beneficiary designations are a vital part of trusts. Inheritance trusts are created so assets can be passed to a designated beneficiary during that individual’s life and following the individual’s death to any of the person’s children. Additionally, good inheritance trusts are written with the understanding that a situation might arise where a beneficiary is temporarily not able to serve as a trustee.

The introduction of cryptocurrency has created a number of new issues, which includes how these digital assets should be addressed in a person’s estate plan. Because the Internal Revenue Service has classified cryptocurrency as property capable of being taxes, it is possible to dictate how ownership of cryptocurrency should be passed in a person’s estate plan. In many cases, however, it can prove difficult to transfer ownership of cryptocurrency without creating a potential security risk. 

The Estate Planning Challenges Presented by Cryptocurrency

A person’s ownership of cryptocurrency is represented in that individual’s virtual “wallet”, which also stores the owners’ credentials and interacts with blockchains so users can both send and receive cryptocurrency. Consequently, the person who knows the access credentials to a virtual wallet has access to any cryptocurrency that is contained in the wallet. 

The Vermont Supreme Court recently heard the case of In re Peter Val Preda Trusts, which introduced some important estate planning issues that all individuals interested in creating trusts should understand. 

Both the individual who created the trust as well as his wife were deceased. In June 2018, the petitioners requested the Georgia probate division to remove the respondent as the individual family trustee of the trustee and appoint the petitioner’s wife as the respondent’s successor. 

The basis for removing the trustee was that the petitioner claimed the removal would improve how the trust was administered because the petitioner and respondent did not communicate with one another and that the respondent had failed to pay attention to investments of the trust. 

The retirement process is full of challenges. One of the best ways to make sure that you navigate this process successfully is to anticipate the various obstacles that lie ahead of you. The implementation of strategies to avoid or limit the severity of obstacles that do arise should be included in a retirement plan. 

The purpose of this article is to review some of the most common mistakes that you should anticipate as you consider and begin the creation of a retirement plan. 

# 1 – Failure to Create a Strategy at All

When it comes to preparation for retirement, an overwhelming number of American do not feel secure in their assets. Approximately only one in five Americans believe they have enough for retirement. This means that almost 50% of Americans have little or no confidence in their retirement savings. 

The Role of the SECURE Act

The House of Representatives passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE) in May, 2019. The purpose of this act was to increase retirement savings. The Act then stalled in the Senate, which makes the future of this body of legislation uncertain. 

There are many parents who have questioned how to create the best possible estate plan for their children. Some parents even make mistakes about how beneficiaries are able to access assets. As a result, this article reviews some important advice that should be followed by parents with young children.

# 1 – Create a Living Document

While it might not seem like it would directly help your children, one of the best steps to take is to make sure that your own living documents are written.