A big issue for those who work on the land, is preparing to transition the family farm or ranch to the next generation. High Plains Journal’s recent article, “Don’t be a failed family-business statistic: Plan for your farm’s future,” explains that deciding the future of your farm or ranch is one of the toughest tasks in agriculture. Decades of hard work and valuable assets are at risk. The statistics for family businesses also don’t look too good, with only 30% of family-owned businesses making it into the second generation. Numbers aside, you can protect your business and guarantee a positive ..read more

We all have many more digital assets than we realize. What happens to those assets when we die?, asks Investment News in the article “4 ways to help clients control their digital afterlife.” The answer is not that simple. There are a large number of rules that survivors must untangle, and many family members are stunned, when they find that not only don’t they have access to these accounts, but the data in the accounts may be deleted permanently, when they try to log in too many times. Almost all states have passed the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), and exper ..read more

The SECURE and RESA acts are currently being considered in Congress. These acts may impact stretch IRAs. A stretch IRA is an estate planning strategy that extends the tax-deferred condition of an inherited IRA, when it is passed to a non-spouse beneficiary. This strategy lets the account continue tax-deferred growth over a long period of time. If a parent doesn’t need her Required Minimum Distributions, does it make sense to do a gradual Roth IRA conversion and use the RMDs to pay taxes on the conversion? Or should the parent invest the RMDs in a brokerage account? These are options when looki ..read more

A recent nj.com recent post asks, “Will the IRS know if I gift money to my grandchildren?” The article explains that federal and state tax agencies do not have any direct way of knowing how much is being gifted. They rely on taxpayers self-reporting gifts. It’s the honor system. However, the tax authorities may discover this when you or the recipient are audited, by matching transactions reported for certain assets, or because banks are required to report cash transfers in excess of $10,000. Because it’s pretty simple to avoid paying gift tax, it doesn’t seem worth the risk of getting caught t ..read more

Investopedia’s recent article asks “Life Estate vs. Irrevocable Trust: What’s the Difference?” The article explains that a life estate and an irrevocable trust are two different ways to make certain that assets are transferred to the right party. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages. A life estate that’s used to gift property will divide the ownership between the giver and receiver. Some parents create a life estate to reduce their assets to qualify for Medicaid. While the parent still has some interest in the property, Medicaid doesn’t count it as an asset. A life estate lasts for t ..read more

A woman in Massachusetts, age 62, is living in her family’s home on borrowed time. Her late father did all the right things: saving to buy a home and then buying a life-insurance policy to satisfy the mortgage on his passing, with the expectation that he had secured the family’s future. However, as reported in the article “Medicaid’s Dark Secret” in The Atlantic, after the father died and the mother needed to live in a nursing home as a consequence of Alzheimer’s, the legacy began to unravel. Just weeks after her mother entered the nursing home, her daughter received a notice that MassHealth ..read more

Regular people have learned that they need to have an estate plan to protect themselves, while they are living and to distribute assets when they pass. Estate planning tools like a Power of Attorney and a Health Care Power of Attorney are basic documents anyone over 18 needs to have. Trusts, once the province of the wealthy, are now being used by people in many different economic levels, reports the Cleveland Jewish News in the article “Five reasons to incorporate trust into estate plan.” Taxes. While it’s true that the exclusion for estates and prior taxable gifts is now $11.4 million per ind ..read more

A recent nj.com article asks, “How do I protect my niece’s inheritance from her husband?” The article says that in a scenario where someone plans to leave most of her estate to her niece but doesn’t want her estranged husband to get his hands on the money, she must be proactive to make sure the inheritance is protected. One option is for the aunt to leave the assets to the niece outright or in trust. The laws in many states say that unless the parties otherwise agree, upon divorce there will be equitable distribution of their marital property. Marital property generally doesn’t include the pro ..read more

If you’ve recently experienced the death of a loved one, you may have spent a lot of time and money dealing with their estate and trying to get their assets out of probate. KAKE.com’s recent article, “Do I Need to Hire a Probate Lawyer?: The Top Signs You Should Lawyer Up” says that trying to do this on your own can often be time-consuming and expensive. That’s why it’s smart to have a probate lawyer working with you. A probate or estate planning lawyer is one who specializes in issues related to a deceased person’s estate. They have a broad range of responsibilities, which includes the follow ..read more

When it comes to asset protection, it doesn’t matter your specialty, says Physician Sense’s recent article, “The Dos and Don’ts of Asset Protection for Doctors,” which advises there are two kinds of doctors—those who’ve been sued and those who’ll be sued. With a good chance of being involved in a malpractice suit at some point in your career, the time to think about protecting your assets is right now, before a patient sues. After the fact, this might look like a way to avoid a creditor. Many courts will cancel those actions. While no one wants to dwell on the possibility of a lawsuit, the goo ..read more