North Carolina Estate Planning Blog: “This posting is courtesy of my colleague David Goldman in Jacksonville, Florida, who has created a special trust for owning weapons regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA). Our Copyrighted NFA Trust is significantly different than any other Revocable Trust on the market. A NFA trust is created for the purpose of purchasing, owning, using, and transferring Title II weapons by you and your family.”
North Carolina Estate Planning Blog: A man sued Bank of America because it refused to honor his father's power of attorney. The man won damages of almost $65,000. Three weeks before the man's father died, the son tried to transfer funds in his father's B of A account to a new account that only the father and son could access. The father's account was held jointly with a woman he knew at his retirement home. The bank refused to transfer the funds to the new account because it was against company policy. When the father died three weeks later, the woman took all the money. The jury struggled 15 minutes to reach its verdict.
Texas estate planning attorney Norma Montalvo Petrosewicz wrote an excellent article called “Top 10 Estate Planning Mistakes.” The article (its in Word 2003 format) starts with
Many attorneys are asked to draft a simple Will, and most attorneys will do so because all it takes is filling out a “form”, right? This article is presented to give non-estate planning attorneys the traps to be wary of in preparing an estate plan.
Although the article is aimed at attorneys who do not prepare estate plans regularly, the article is also a good primer for everyone who needs a will, trust and estate plan. Here's Norma's list, but read her article to understand why each item on the list is a mistake:
For more information about estate planning for Arizona residents, see our Estate Planning Law Library.
The Probate Lawyer Blog: “It's been widely reported across various websites in the last couple days that Farrah Fawcett's will has been revealed and it “shockingly” disinherited her longtime ex-boyfriend Ryan O'Neal (father to her son, Redmond). These reports are wrong on several levels. Fawcett family. First, the document was her Trust, not her will. . . . The specifics of how this will work are a good lesson for others to follow when they have a beneficiary who is not ready to receive a chunk of change all at once.”
Financial Times: “Wealthy families are spending more time educating their children in financial matters after an explosion of wealth among entrepreneurs means there is more money to be passed to the next generation. The past decade has seen an enormous amount of wealth created around the world. While some of it has been lost recently there is still enough left for it to be an issue among the newly rich, who have little idea how to prepare their families to receive it.”
North Carolina Estate Planning Blog: “Planning for tax-qualified plans, which includes IRAs, 401(k)s and qualified retirement plans, requires a careful examination of the potential taxes that impact these assets. Unlike most other assets that receive a ‘basis step up' to current fair market value upon the owner’s death, IRAs, 401(k)s and other qualified retirement plans do not step-up to the date-of-death value. Therefore, beneficiaries who receive these assets do so subject to income tax. If your estate is subject to estate tax, the value of these assets may be further reduced by the estate tax. And if you name grandchildren or younger generations as beneficiaries, these assets may additionally be reduced by the generation-skipping transfer tax. All tolled, these assets may be reduced by 70% or more. There are several strategies available to help reduce the impact of these taxes:”
Farrah Fawcett's 2007 Trust provides that her estate is to be disposed of as follows:
The Trust does not give anything to her long-time significant other Ryan O'Neal, who said “These were Farrah's wishes and I am perfectly happy with them.”
Reuters: “Jeffry Picower, the billionaire beneficiary of Bernard Madoff's fraud scheme who died last month in Florida, left $200 million to his wife and appointed her chairwoman of a charitable foundation to be funded with assets from his estate. The $200 million for Picower's wife, Barbara . . . . The Picowers were friends of Wall Street financier Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence after pleading guilty to running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The trustee handling the Madoff fraud case, Irving Picard, said in court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York in September, that Picower, newly listed as one of the 400 wealthiest Americans by Forbes magazine, was complicit in the fraud.”
Pittsburgh Post Gazette: “After an American soldier died in Iraq five years ago, his father wanted to save copies of his son's e-mails sent through a Yahoo! account. But the Internet company's privacy policy allowed access by only the soldier, triggering a legal fight. The case highlights a growing discussion concerning what happens when the owner of password-protected online accounts dies. To whom do they belong ? And how can digital assets be passed on to heirs?”
news.com.au: “In a digital world your deepest secrets no longer die with you. Andrew Ramadge reports on what happens to your private emails when you pass away.”
Los Angeles Times: “Michael Jackson’s funeral at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale cost more than $1 million, including $35,000 for the pop star’s burial garments, according to court documents unsealed” November 10, 2009.
South Florida Estate Planning Law: “I have long admired the Wall Street Journal and considered them a paragon of straightforward and relatively high level journalism. . . . Not anymore. Today, the Wall Street Journal has led their readers horribly astray in such a manner that may cause untold pain and suffering (along with substantial costs) to God knows how many people. I'm talking about their ‘review' of do-it-yourself estate planning. Apparently, there is a recurring column in the WSJ entitled ‘Cranky Consumer.' It should be titled ‘Idiot Consumer.'”
See also “Self-Help Legal Switcheroo” for another opinion on Legalzoom and its disclaimers of responsibility for your boo boos with CYA language such as “Legalzoom cannot provide legal advice and can only provide self-help services at your specific direction.”
North Carolina Estate Planning Blog: “One common oversight I see when reviewing new clients’ financial status is failure to consider the estate tax impact of large life insurance policies. Most people know that life insurance proceeds are received free from income tax. What most don’t know, however, is that the proceeds are part of the insured’s estate for estate tax purposes if:
Times Online: “Peter Sellers had reached a final divorce settlement with his fourth wife that would have deprived her of any claim on his estate — but he died before the document became binding, according to legal papers that have come to light. . . . [The wife] died an alcoholic in 1994 and the fortune left by the star of the Goons and Pink Panther films has since been inherited by her daughter by her next-but-one husband after Sellers. Cassie Ungar, 25, who lives in Los Angeles, never met her benefactor.”
Wall St. Journal: “It's hard to overstate the crisis facing charitable giving today. So let me just say it as plainly as I can: Much of current philanthropic giving, by foundations and individuals, neither meets the needs of our charitable organizations nor addresses some of our most urgent public needs. Foundation practices today are too bureaucratic, inflexible and cautious, and too focused on short-term objectives. Too often, the process and procedures of grant making are more tailored to the needs of foundations and their trustees than to the requirements of nonprofits.”
USA Today: “Every day, says hospital ethicist Dawn Seery, someone tells her: ‘I don't know what to do. I'm afraid everyone will be angry.' When it comes to discussing end-of-life decisions, most people are unprepared, confused and frightened. Most of all, Seery says, ‘they want to know how they can recognize and decide when ‘enough is enough.'”
Jensen Law Office: “Now is the time to update your existing estate plan, or proceed with implementing a comprehensive estate plan. Why? First, we now know with certainty that the federal estate tax is not going away, and thus we should establish a plan that avoids or at least minimize this voluntary tax. More importantly, if you don't you just might end up like the host of celebrities who have made the headlines recently because they either had no estate planning or because the planning they did have was woefully out of date or otherwise inadequate.”
MorningStar: “When Ginnie and Alan wrote me in early 2009, they were feeling nervous about their portfolio's ability to last through what they hoped would be a long and fruitful retirement. But this couple wasn't thinking only about themselves. As parents of a daughter with special needs, they were seeking guidance on what to do to ensure that their child would be able to remain independent and have enough money to cover her needs. Their 20-something daughter was employed and living on her own nearby, but she relied on them for ongoing financial support. . . . While I strongly believe that you can tackle many aspects of financial planning on your own, without the assistance of a professional, estate planning–the process of distributing one's assets after death–isn't one of them.”
24-7 Press Release: “Many business owners are so consumed with daily operations that they don't think about estate planning. Estate planning for business owners can be significantly different than for people who don't own a business. Business owners often fail to plan properly. This can lead to conflicts among family members, higher estate taxes and even failure of the business. When the owner of a business dies, it can be disruptive to the company if the owner did not plan carefully. If you own a business, you may eventually have to decide when and how to step down. Many tools for estate planning can be used to transfer your business.”