Estate planning is meant to give you a sense of control over where the wealth you have cultivated over a lifetime will go once you pass on. While historically, people with great fortunes often believed being buried with their treasures would give them a better afterlife, we know that our material possessions are not much …
Central to the core of inheritance is our desire to leave our financial legacy to our children and grandchildren. A life filled with ambition, mistakes, successes, and hard work can pave the way to much wealth and fortune – but there is no way to enjoy any of that after we have passed on, and …
The current tax reform bill signed into law by President Trump earlier last year and gone into effect starting this year (2018), has made significant changes to quite a few different types of taxes – not just for individuals, but for businesses, estates, and tax-exempt organizations like charities. Named the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act …
Losing a loved one can be incredibly difficult to process, no matter how long a person might have seen it coming. You cannot prepare yourself for the pain and grief of having someone you care about disappear from this world. However, that pain can be compounded with the confusion felt from the aftermath of a …
Take two cars to the track. One is a fully-fledged drag racer, built specifically for a certain stretch of road, with a custom transmission, near-perfect aerodynamics, as little weight as possible, and just enough fuel needed to cross the finish line. Pit it against a stock Honda Civic. Which will win? Specificity is the key …
Most people are intimately familiar with the concept of ownership, from buying a brand-new car to getting a kitchen appliance. But there are many ways of owning something, with distinctions to be made between different kinds of ownership, and legal proofs to determine whether you truly are an owner or not. For example, say you …
When a person passes away, their belongings must pass on into the ownership of someone else. That process, however, is not always simple. Ownership can be legally complicated and defined in a multitude of ways, yet cleanly transferring said ownership is tricky business. That is why there are specific laws and rules when it comes …
A trust is a legal entity that enables the transfer of assets from one person to the next. While all trusts have the same end goal, a different type exists for every circumstance. It works as an instrument for temporarily holding wealth under the trust’s name, separate from the original owner and beneficiary, before passing …
Last year’s unveiled new tax plan changed the game for 2018 and onwards, taking significant steps to diminish the power and reach of the estate tax and make changes to the gift tax. Eliminating the one and raising exemptions for the other have long been goals for the Republican party, and while the President’s campaign …
The probate process is one by which the law helps families determine what to do with a deceased loved one’s possessions, taking into consideration the law and their will, if it exists. While the probate process is not especially complicated, it can last well over a year, depending on the estate’s complexity and the circumstances …