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.
Estate planning is
about protecting your loved ones, which means, in part, protecting them from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It is essential for estate planning to transfer assets to heirs in order to create the lowest possible tax burden for them.Estate planning is the preparation of tasks that serve to manage a person's asset base in the event of disability or death. Planning includes bequeathing assets to heirs and settling wealth taxes. Most estate plans are established with the help of an attorney with experience in property law. Another purpose of estate planning is to ensure that your assets are transferred to the appropriate beneficiaries.
Estate planning involves establishing a plan that establishes who will eventually receive your assets. It also reveals how you want your affairs to be handled in case you can't handle them on your own for any reason. It's a complicated process and, without a doubt, it can be overwhelming. Estate planning has many components, and while there's a common misconception that it's just about your finances, the truth is that there's much more.
The reason an estate plan is so important is that, without it, your assets can end up in legal limbo for years. This can place an unnecessary burden on your heirs and other family members who have to take care of managing their finances. In addition to ensuring that your assets reach the people you choose, planning can also help to minimize income, gift and wealth taxes. It may seem like estate plans are only for people with real “properties”, but most people should have one.
Each Orange County estate planning lawyer at Modern Wealth Law practices exclusively in the areas of estate planning, asset protection, estate management, and trust administration. Or, if the beneficiary is already an adult who doesn't know how to manage money or has an authoritarian spouse or partner who fears that they will waste the beneficiary's inheritance or accept it in a divorce, you can create an estate plan that protects the beneficiary. Assets that could constitute a person's wealth include houses, cars, stocks, works of art, life insurance, pensions and debts. Many people think of estate planning as a process that must be done to prepare for what happens when you die.
People have several reasons to plan an estate, such as preserving family wealth, supporting a surviving spouse and children, funding the education of children or grandchildren, or leaving their legacy to a charitable cause. As children grow older, their financial lives become more complex and, as their assets and needs grow and change, their current estate plan must be reviewed to ensure that it continues to meet their current needs and to anticipate any future needs. A complete estate plan would also include provisions that address what would happen in the event of a simultaneous death. Through the most basic planning, married couples can reduce or even completely eliminate estate taxes by creating AB trusts or ABC trusts as part of their wills or revocable living trusts.
While these are some of the main purposes of estate planning, its driving force for estate planning may be something else entirely. Another good reason to have an estate plan is to minimize the succession process and its expenses, delays and loss of privacy. .
