Estate Planning as a Career

Charitable Trusts

The charitable trust has some serious tax incentives, but there is more to the popular trusts than a tax shelter. They are by there very nature a great way to provide support for a charity of your choice.

It has become in vogue for many young retirees to donate their time to several of their preferred charities. For many of these retirees a charitable trust them to give a little back, both monetarily and via volunteer work.

A trust essentially transfers assets from one desired entity to another of choice, and does so in a timely and efficient fashion. By utilizing a charitable trust, you can be provided with a stream of income, from the charitable trust holdings that you can’t outlive. When the time comes that you do die, your remaining assets inside the charitable trust transfer directly to your established charity. This explanation is a very simple one, and only scratches the surface when it comes to charitable trusts. Make sure to work with a well-seasoned estate planning team so that you and your charity receive the best.

Living Trust

Setting up a living trust is one of the most essential steps on the estate planning process. Though anytime we deal with the certainty of our mortality its never something to get excited about. But we must, as it’s one of the most important financial planning steps we can take. A living trust allows us to be remembered in a way we’d like to be remembered. Whether we want to support a particular charity or bequeath to our dearest heirs a living trust is the way to go.

In very simplistic terms, a living trust is legal way to transfer your assets or desires from one entity to another. The individual that puts the funds in the trust is called the trustor; the individual that manages the said trust is called the trustee. And lastly, t (more…)

Asset Protection Trusts (APTs) are designed to keep funds from the grasp of creditors and to ensure your inheritance is honored. People who are vulnerable to negligence or malpractice suits find these trusts to be especially valuable. For this reasons, professionals in fields like medicine, dentistry, accounting, or the legal fields should give these trusts serious consideration.

In essence, these trusts operate by making the person virtually insolvent or judgment proof to creditors or lawsuits. These trusts are so effective because they are situated in countries that do not honor the judgments of foreign courts. Although time does play a factor in creating these asset protection trusts. It is very important that you create these prior to actually needing them. The reason is creating them after the fact would result in a risk of a fraudulent conveyance.

Therefore, you should immediately look into using these services before the need of one presents itself in the form of a judgment or creditor demand.

In addition, you should actively seek out these services now because opportunities are dwindling worldwide as more countries are putting pressure on offshore jurisdictions to curtail these services. Although this has been effective in some jurisdictions, there are still plenty of ones to choose from that will offer all the benefits of offshore banking.

However, to help make sure you find some great asset protection trusts, we recommend you follow several tips:

1. Make certain the offshore jurisdiction does not honor foreign court’s judgments.

This is the most important factor in ensuring the legitimacy of an asset protection trust. Some common choices include Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, St. Vincent, and Nassau.

2. Choose a low tax or tax free offshore jurisdiction.

This can be very helpful in ke (more…)

We have all heard the horror stories of probate. In fact, most infamously, the estate of the late Elvis Presley was significantly reduced in value to probate taxation. Just because the King himself didn’t follow the proper estate planning procedures doesn’t mean you should too. For good reason, it’s a good idea to avoid estate probate whenever possible. The good news is that it’s not a difficult or complicated thing to avoid probate.

When it comes to clearing out your estate, the probate process can be both time-consuming and costly. Even if you have a will set up, your estate must still go through the probate process. There are a few ways to avoid this, most commonly setting up a living trust. A living trust can be a great way to pass along assets without the long delays that are so commonly associated with the probate process. There are a few more ways to avoid probate like life insurance, for example, but establishing a living trust covers your entire estate.

Establishing a living trust used to be a big ordeal. You have to find an attorney well versed in estate planning issues that could draft you up a suitable living trust based on your situation. For obvious reasons, things could get pretty expensive, pretty quickly. In the past, it was just easier to draw up a simple will. But, it no longer has to be that way. He advances of the Internet have had a rather large impact on our lives. These advances have made it much easier to research living trust issues. In fact, you can do everything online now, from the research to setting up your custom living trust. And the beauty of all this is that you don’t have to pay an expensive attorney to just fill out forms on your behalf. If you’re like most of us that like to do things themselves, filling out simple forms is a great way to reduce the costs associated with setting up a living trust. Tak (more…)