My colleague’s father recently got infected with the coronavirus and had to be rushed to the hospital. The move was abrupt and hectic, and left no time for any deep conversation with his wife and family as he was being taken out to the ambulance.
Low interest rates and looming potential tax changes make this a good time for high-net-worth clients to use a special tool to transfer wealth: the grantor-retained annuity trust (GRAT), a strategy to reduce future estate taxes, by transferring assets to beneficiaries without using the lifetime gift tax exclusion.
Many people work hard to acquire real estate and then later find that that real estate makes them ineligible for Medicaid to help pay for nursing home or in-home, long-term care.
It is critical that parents and grandparents give careful thought to any gift of money or bequest in an estate plan, when the recipient has special needs.
A common misconception is that you do not have to probate a will when your spouse dies.
In situations where both spouses want the surviving spouse to inherit all the assets, which is often the case, a joint trust can be far less complicated to set up and maintain than separate trusts, with less headaches for the surviving spouse.
While symptoms of Alzheimer’s and dementia do overlap, they should be treated as separate entities to best address the conditions medically.
Let’s start with the numbers: 10 and 1,000,000,000,000. Over this decade, $1 trillion is expected to change hands through inheritance. The majority of that will end up in the hands of baby boomers. While one study found that the average inheritance was only $50,000, there will be a lot of inheritances in the $1 million-plus range.
After a loved one passes, one of the biggest hurdles families face is passing wealth onto the next generation. Unfortunately, family dynamics can spur conflict and infighting among descendants.
Is it better to transfer the title of the home to us, or to leave it as it is given her age and go through probate?
