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Charitable Giving in Estate Planning
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 @ 09:05 PM
Planning your estate intelligently means that you should maximize the taxes you save and at the same time increase the dollars you give. Charitable giving can play an important part in your final financial plans, and charitable giving is one option for reducing or even eliminating estate taxes.
Charitable estate planning can include donating property directly to a charitable organization, and that value is directly deductible from the gross estate. Another option is to give the interest earned by a trust to a charitable organization. However, for the charitable interest to qualify for a deduction, it must be directed to a public pooled income fund, or it has to be a charitable remainder annuity trust, a charitable remainder unitrust, a charitable lead trust, or a qualified terminable interest trust with a charitable remainder beneficiary. All this may sound foreign to you, but what it means is there are options available to you if you know how to leverage them.
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The Medicare Part D Annual Election Period has changed!
Monday, October 24, 2011 @ 05:10 PM
For those of you who are enrolled in Medicare, you may have gotten in the habit of making your annual Part D coverage election from November 15th through December 31st. This year, the annual election period dates have changed – so you need to get it handled sooner rather than later, or else lose the opportunity. The new dates are October 15th through December 7th. The plan coverage will still begin on January 1st, as usual.
Risk of Liability to Personal Representatives
Sunday, August 14, 2011 @ 05:08 PM
There is a risk of personal liability for Personal Representatives in a probate when the estate is insolvent or partially insolvent. When the assets of the estate are not sufficient to cover all the creditors’ claims that have been allowed, there is a priority amongst creditors for who gets paid and how much. If the Personal Representative pays a creditor that is lower on the payment totem-pole, then a creditor higher on the totem-pole who did not get paid can sue the Personal Representative for the amount that the creditor would have gotten had the PR not paid the other creditor. Personal Representatives for estates that may be insolvent need to act with caution from the start when it comes to paying creditors – you may not know until the end whether the estate really is insolvent, and by then it may be too late.
Special Needs Trusts and disabled beneficiaries
Sunday, August 14, 2011 @ 02:08 PM
Special Needs Trusts are set up so that a disabled person can enjoy a better quality of life while still remaining eligible for means tested government programs on which they may rely for housing, medical care, and other services. It is imperative that family members and well-meaning friends not give or bequeath anything of value to a disabled person directly, but instead name the trustee of the special needs trust as the beneficiary. If the disabled person receives gifts or inheritance directly, they may then be ineligible for the services upon which they depend. For family members who the disabled person may inherit from, it is important that they make an estate plan that names the trustee of the special needs trust as the beneficiary because the probate court does not have the authority to do so on its own.