Money & Law
Benefits of a Living Trust
You want to have documents to protect your wishes, making sure that you leave a legacy behind for your loved ones, and if you become incapacitated — if you need help in your later life, if you're unable to speak for yourself — there is legal proof that honors your wishes. Legacy Estate Planning attorney Steve Waltar joins Suzanne to talk about the value of trusts.
How Legal Documents Work Together to Help You
This segment focuses on how various legal documents work together as part of your estate planning to make sure you're taken care of if anything happens that makes you incapacitated. Andrea Lee from Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to talk about the pieces of a person's legal puzzle.
Incapacity: Everything You Need to Know
Incapacity planning is a broad area of law that covers how you are cared for if you become physically or mentally unable to care for yourself. Andrea Lee from Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to talk about issues individuals and families face in regards to incapacity. The type of care could range from simple tasks like buying groceries, paying bills, and handling financial matters to more important decisions such as selling real estate, gifting assets to your children, or making critical medical decisions. Incapacity planning could include a number of techniques such as Property Powers of Attorney, Health Care Powers of Attorney, Living Wills or Advance Health Care Directives or Guardianships/Conservatorships. It is also important to have appropriate HIPAA authorization forms in place.
Everything You Need to Know About Probate
Probate is a court process to retitle assets. Probate is designed to create a “final accounting” upon death. It is the legal process of “proving up” a will, or verifying that a will is valid, takes place in one of two instances. First, if a person dies leaving behind a will, or second, if the deceased has died intestate, that is, has not left behind a will or estate plan of any type or the will cannot be found. Estate planning attorney Steve Waltar with Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to give us a primer on probate.
The Trouble With Joint Tenancy: Estate Planning
Although Joint Tenancy offers some short-term conveniences, in the long run it poses a host of problems that can cost you and your loved ones many times the expense and headaches you thought you were avoiding. Estate planning attorney Steve Waltar with Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to talk about the difficulties of using joint tenancy while trying to plan your estate.
Your State Does It If You Won’t: Estate Planning
If you don't file estate planning documents, your state will do it for you, perhaps not the way you expect. Estate planning attorney Steve Waltar with Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to talk about various options available when planning your estate, what happens when you list beneficiaries, generally how wills work, living wills, living trusts, and Medicaid planning.
Answering Veteran Fears: Paying for Senior Care
Emily Schwarz at ElderLife Financial says Veterans Benefits are the most underutilized way to pay for senior care.
Gift Tax Leverage: Building Generational Wealth & Strong Families
Estate planning expert David T. Phillips explains how proper gifting will not only give the giver fulfillment during their life, it can produce generations of powerful, productive people. He also shows you how to leverage your annual gifts to the max.
Retire Richer With These Tax-Free Investment Secrets
In episode 5 of the Estate Planning Made Easy podcast, David T. Phillips reveals key investments that either postpone taxes or accumulate totally income and capital gains tax free.
A/B Trusts, Protect Your Assets and Avoid Probate
A true estate planning attorney helps you craft a logical distribution plan that has true dynasty provisions avoiding the expenses of probate, blessing multiple generations. In this episode of the Estate Planning Made Easy podcast, David T. Phillips explains how this can be done by ignoring Portability, and establishing an A/B Credit Shelter Trust. Using this little-known estate planning technique, you not only avoid probate, the Credit Shelter “B” Trust can grow to unimaginable sums with absolutely no future federal or state estate taxes. What’s more, this tax-free growth can last as long as there are assets in the trust.