An article on Wall Street Journal has this advice to give: “With Estate Planning, Don’t Forget Virtual Assets.” Failing to include provisions for virtual assets in a will could lead to real-world losses if the surviving spouse or beneficiaries are unable to access the deceased’s online accounts. Here are just a few samples of the digital assets with obvious financial value:
We do estate planning because we want to make sure that our loved ones are taken care of at the time of our passing. At the very least, we would want our wealth to be preserved and distributed according to our wishes in order to provide the ones we leave behind with financial stability. While the purchase of life insurance and
In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Clients for Venus”, female financial advisers describe how women tend to take a different approach from men when it comes to financial planning: “Men are extremely competitive about money management. They think, ‘how much money can I make and how much more is it than the benchmark or the guy sitting next to
I frequently counsel families on the benefits of continuing trusts. The old method of giving children outright distributions or staging the distributions at ages 21, 25 and 30 not only increases the likelihood of the beneficiary making a poor decision with the funds, but doesn’t offer any of the protective benefits of trusts. A recent article on Wall Street Journal explains why
There’s something about watching celebrities acting like “real people” and making mistakes that seems to appeal to viewers, as proven by the continuing popularity of reality TV shows. A Forbes article on “What We Can Learn From Celebrity Estate Planning Gone Wrong” shows that the estate planning foibles of the rich and famous are no exception – there’s already a show
Thomas Kinkade was a self-named “painter of light”, whose mass-produced works of art are estimated to grace one in every twenty American homes. Following his untimely death on April 6, 2012, however, his most famous pieces are turning out to be a couple of holographic wills he left to his girlfriend of 18 months, Amy Pinto-Walsh. The wills bequeath Pinto-Walsh with
Previous blog posts discussed how the wills left behind by famous figures such as Whitney Houston and Thomas Kinkade will likely go through a lengthy and expensive probate court that could have been avoided if they had updated their estate planning documents after life changing events. A recent Forbes article lists 5 Life Event Changes That Require An Estate Planning Review:
A Forbes article posted on March 15, 2012 discusses how “Whitney Houston’s Will Was Far From Perfect.” The article highlights two simple estate planning practices that could have benefitted Bobbi Kristina, Whitney’s only child and sole heir: 1. Consider a living trust instead of a will. A living trust can have the advantage of maintaining privacy and avoiding probate. Although Whitney
According to a recent study conducted by The Williams Group on over 3,250 families, “70% of intergenerational wealth transfers fail.” Their report defined “failure” to be situations wherein the heirs squandered the inherited wealth and assets. The majority of these failures stemmed from families whose heirs were not properly prepared for the responsibilities that came with their inheritance. The absence of
American families only have until midnight of December 31, 2012 to pass along assets amounting up to $5.12 million without fear of being taxed by Uncle Sam. Couples can give a combined gift of up to $10 million to their children – tax free. For wealthy families, this is a golden opportunity that should not be missed and an online article