A recent article in Forbes, quoting statistics provided by the Harris organization, found that out of 1022 people polled only 35% had executed a last will.  Among younger Americans the figure was even lower as you might expect, with just 24% of the people who participated in the survey, under the age of 35, had executed either a last will or a living will.

Estate planning is an area where procrastination not only puts that person at risk it also puts there loved ones in a difficult position in the event of death or disability.

Most younger families rely on earned income to maintain quality of life. For this reason, it is essential that such families have an income replacement vehicle.  This need is often met through life insurance.  Coverage should be revisited as financial responsibilities increase.  All families are well advised to implement a sound long-term financial plan.  If this sounds like a good idea to you, take the first step and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Reno financial planning attorney.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

You have a trust or a will in place, so you have determined how the distribution of your assets will take place upon your death.  That is great, because now you are at least assured that the “government plan” or intestate succession is not necessarily your plan.  Further, with a funded trust, your estate will also avoid unnecessary and unwanted probate.

Your estate plan will also avoid unnecessary disputes about the distribution of the estate. Each family is different but how do you think a typical family may react if it was up to them to agree upon how the assets of a loved one should be distributed? Clearly, in many cases, consensus would be hard to come by. You don’t have to worry about this when it comes to your estate, but there is an issue that is often ignored.  That issue is the funeral planning.

If you were to pass away without leaving behind any instructions regarding your funeral details your family members could wind up disagreeing.  Of course, this comes at a very difficult time for families.  If one family member takes charge and arranges for cremation when other family members have moral or religious objections, it can create a rift in the family.  Even choices of caskets, the amount spent on the funeral arrangements and the choice of burial clothing can create hard feelings at a highly emotional time.

Even if there are no particular disagreements among family members, someone is going to have to take up serious time in making these arrangements at a time when they are grieving and in no mood for it.

If you take the time to make your funeral arrangements in advance, you can even select the facility, casket and clothing of your choice and pre-pay should you choose to do so. To learn more about including final arrangements in your estate plan, get in touch with an experienced northern Nevada estate planning lawyer to arrange for a consultation.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you are one that likes to be prepared for life’s eventualities then you should consider the possibility of mental incapacity.  According to the Alzheimer’s Association 13% of senior citizens suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, and this rises to about 40% among individuals who have reached the age of 85. Alzheimer’s causes dementia among other things and people who are suffering from dementia can find themselves unable to make sound decisions.

To prepare yourself, you may want to consider creating a living trust with incapacity safeguards included.  In many cases the grantor will serve as the trustee while he or she is alive and fully capable of decision-making. However, you could also name a disability trustee who would administer the resources in the trust if the grantor and primary trustee was to become incapacitated.

In addition, durable powers of attorney are recommended as a way to empower people of your own choosing to make decisions in your behalf should you become unable to do so in the future due to incapacity.

If interested parties were to suspect that you have become incapable to manage your own affairs effectively they could petition the court to appoint a guardian to make decisions in your behalf.  This can be an expensive, time consuming and humiliating process.  This possibility can be avoided if you plan ahead intelligently.  The best way to do so is with the assistance of an experienced and licensed Reno estate planning attorney.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The dictionary definition of the word “legacy” will tell you that your legacy involves gifts of property and monetary assets after your passing. This is of course a large part of it, but there could be more to shaping your legacy than simply arranging for the passing of your assets to your family members.

Depending on your resources exactly how you go about this can vary considerably. There are those who will make a donation that is specifically used to finance some type of building project. This may carry your name into perpetuity, which can be quite rewarding for many people.

Some people will leave behind the resources to provide a scholarship or scholarships to worthy students. This too can be an enriching portion of an individual’s legacy.

You can also choose to pass along the wisdom that you have acquired throughout your life by committing your experiences to writing. Some people choose to write a full-blown autobiography and leave it behind for future generations to draw from. Others will author an ethical will that passes along their moral and spiritual values. Today, there are many resources to assist in writing an interesting personal history that can be found online or in bookstores.  The same is true of writing an ethical will.

Carefully selecting certain family heirlooms and/or personal possessions and handing them on to particular respective heirs for specific reasons can also be part of a carefully planned legacy.

There are many possibilities to take into account when you are preparing for the latter portion of your life and your eventual death. If you’re interested in taking estate planning to a higher level, don’t hesitate to get in touch with a Northern Nevada legacy planning attorney to arrange for an informative consultation.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Partners in small businesses that are engaged in the process of estate planning can be faced with a tricky situation. If you were such a partner you would probably want the value of your business to be spread among different family members after your passing. So, this business interest would have to be sold to provide the necessary liquidity.

But, how will your partners feel about this? They would be forced to deal with whoever it is that purchased your share in the business whether they feel comfortable working with this individual or entity or not.

The way that situations such as these are often addressed is through the creation of buy-sell agreements. These agreements utilize the purchase of life insurance to allow the remaining partners to buy the share of the deceased partner from his or her family.

With the cross purchase plan each of the co-owners in the business takes out a life insurance policy on every other. After one of them dies the combined insurance policy proceeds are used to buy the share that was owned by the deceased individual from his or her family.

Another type of buy-sell agreement involves the business itself taking out life insurance policies on all the co-owners equal to the value of each respective share with these proceeds being used to buy the share of the deceased partner from his or her heirs. This approach is called the entity plan.

Buy-sell agreements can provide a relatively simple solution in some cases. To learn more about small business succession planning, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with an experienced and licensed Reno estate planning attorney.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you consider the subject of estate planning it is useful to recognize the fact that it is an ongoing process. Your initial estate plan is going to be based on a snapshot of your life as it existed at that time. Clearly, things do not stand still and events happen in your life that often times render your existing estate plan obsolete. Things like changes in marital status and additions and subtractions to the family would fit this description.

In addition, there are things that take place that are out of your control that affect your estate planning efforts. Legislative changes that impact the tax code are among them, and with this in mind we would like to take a look at the lay of the land at the present time.

The estate tax and the gift tax are unified, and at the present time there is a $5 million unified exclusion. So if your estate and any gifts that you have given utilizing your unified exclusion do not exceed this amount no estate or gift taxes will be levied. Estates or gifts exceeding the exclusion are taxed at 35%.  Keep in mind that any gift exceeding the annual exclusion amount of $13,000 per person, reduces the estate tax exemption by the amount of the gift.

Those parameters are only in place through the end of next year.  At that time the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 will expire and the rate of the tax will rise to as much as 55% while the unified exclusion is reduced to just $1 million.

So, this presents an interesting situation. The $5 million exclusion becomes a $1 million exclusion when 2013 arrives, so it would be logical to consider giving gifts to your loved ones in 2012 before the exclusion is reduced.

Of course it is possible that changes to the laws could take place at any time, and this is another factor to consider. Clearly, the pending reduction of the exclusion is food for thought and it is something to discuss with your estate planning attorney.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Some view Social Security as their primary retirement plan.  The reality is that this program is a basic safety net that may not provide the financial resources needed for a comfortable retirement.

That said, since most are required to pay into the program it can be viewed as welcome supplement to retirement if nothing more.  There are several commonly asked questions that people who are engaged in retirement planning often ask.

The first question most people have involves the age of eligibility.  Qualified Americans who were born in 1954 and earlier reach full retirement age in a Social Security eligibility context on their 66th birthday.  The age of full eligibility then rises by two months per year through 1959. Anyone born after that becomes eligible to receive their full Social Security benefit when they reach 67.

Another question people often have is whether or not they can work while receiving Social Security. The answer is that once you reach the age of full eligibility you can indeed earn any amount of income and still collect your full benefit.

However, you don’t have to wait until you reach your full eligibility age to begin receiving Social Security.  You can start receiving Social Security when you are as young as 62, but you receive a reduced benefit.  If you work before you reach full retirement age while you are receiving this reduced benefit your payout is cut by one dollar for every two dollars that you earn above a certain annual limit.  Right now that limit is $14,160.

The above information is accurate as of this writing but of course it is subject to change.  To review current information visit the following website.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Inheritance planning is really a comprehensive endeavor and it entails more than simply directing the transfer of assets via the execution of documents. There are numerous practical considerations that require communication with family and loved ones. Some feel as though they will always have time to communicate their wishes at some point in the future when they have more time. For many the topic of death is s difficult topic to discuss. Though these concerns are certainly understandable, procrastination can leave your loved ones in a difficult situation. You never know what lies ahead and this is what intelligent and comprehensive advance planning is all about.

It is a good idea to ask yourself what your family members would be faced with if you were to pass away on a purely practical level. Are there keys to vehicles and perhaps real property that they should have or be able to obtain? Do you have a safe deposit box? If so, who has access to it? Documents are another matter to consider. Do your your family members know where to find documents that would be relevant to them if you were to pass away? Who has passwords to accounts and other information on your computer files?

Since we live in the digital age a lot of people have important passwords and usernames that their loved ones would need if they were charged with the responsibility of handling the final affairs of the deceased. This can include social network identities as well as business relationships.

These are just a few specific things to keep in mind. Take time to compile a list of items that you should communicate to your loved ones so they will be prepared to handle the practical matters that they will face when the inevitable ultimately takes place.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

We seem to live society that is somewhat obsessed with celebrities lives. Some media reports are instructive with respect to estate planning dos and don’ts. It was recently announced that Frenchwoman Liliane Bettencourt, who is the second richest woman in the world, has been declared mentally incompetent to handle her own affairs. Bettencourt is 88 years old and reportedly suffering from Alzheimer’s induced dementia. Her family members have been involved in court struggles contending that she has been making bad financial decisions, including the diversion of some $1.4 billion to French renaissance man, Francois-Marie Banier. Bettencourt reportedly sought assistance to create a new will making Banier the sole beneficiary of her estate. The French court has given Bettencourt’s daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers and her two grandsons control over the Bettencourt fortune, which is estimated to be valued at about $23.5 billion. According to Forbes this makes Liliane Bettencourt the 15th richest person in the world.

Situations like these provide a window into the way things can go if you do not engage in appropriate planning when you are in full control of your faculties. Whether or not the heiress was a victim of financial exploitation is in question. It may be safe to say that most people would not choose to give away $1.4 billion to someone who is not a family member and then change their will to disinherit their only child and grandchildren when they are in their 80s when they are of sound mind. Some 40% of people age 85 and up suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. So yes, something like this could happen to you, which emphasizes the importance of seeking a qualified estate planner to assist in putting together a sound estate plan.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

There are a lot of details to take into consideration when you are planning your legacy, and the best way to address them is with the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney. Rather than being consistently confronted with a series of unanswered questions as you think things through it is much simpler and more efficient to sit down with a legacy planning professional and work through the process from an informed perspective.

Experienced estate planning attorneys know how to proceed under any circumstances and they also understand how to adjust your estate plan on an ongoing basis as changes both within your life and throughout society as a whole take place that impact your existing plan.

One of the intricacies that people often face when they are engaged in inheritance planning involves providing for minor children. There are a number of different ways to proceed, and one of them would be to create a trust and make the child the beneficiary.

You can stipulate whatever you would like to in the trust with regard to what expenditures the trust is empowered to make in behalf of the child while he or she is still a minor. The grantor could then go on to set forth the terms for distribution of assets after the child becomes a legal adult.

Some people allow for the transfer of the total lump sum when the child reaches a particular age, and others arrange for more gradual distributions. You could even choose to include incentives such as allowing for regular distributions while the beneficiary remains in college with a lump sum to follow upon graduation.

Short of creating a trust you could name a property guardian in your will or appoint a custodian under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act. At a minimum, parents of minor children must have a will where a guardian of the person of your children can be named.

Providing for minor children is an important part of many estate plans. If you would like to learn more details, simply arrange for a consultation with an experienced estate planning attorney.

Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.