Estate Planning Resources

Life can be busy. The requirements of work and family often leave little time to step back and think about where you've been and where you're heading. But as your responsibilities grow, so does the need to evaluate what would happen if life for you stopped. September is Life Insurance Awareness Month and a good time to reflect on how life insurance can help those you leave behind — the living…

If you're looking to save money for college, one option to consider is a 529 college savings plan. Created over 20 years ago and named after the section of the tax code that governs them, 529 plans offer a unique combination of features that have made them the 401(k)s of the college savings world.

529 college savings plans are individual investment-type accounts…

While no one can predict the future, the possibility of tax reform is once again in the spotlight. If it occurs, it may very well include repeal of the federal estate tax and related changes to the federal gift tax, the federal generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax, and the federal income tax basis rules.

In general, an estate tax is a tax on…

Is your growing business still a one-person operation? As your company continues to grow and the workload increases, it is easy to find yourself wearing too many hats and not having enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needs to be done. At such a turning point, many small business owners turn to their families for help.

Involving family members…

Longevity is often cheered as an achievement, but the downside of living well beyond one's average life expectancy is that it can strain (or worse, completely deplete) an individual's financial resources. The first step in addressing longevity risk is to evaluate just how great the odds are that either you or your spouse will have a much longer-than-average life span. Health considerations,…

Plenty of people who pass away or become debilitated leave their spouses with overly complicated financial plans, too little information, and no clear instructions about where to turn for help. Below are some of the key ways to make sure that doesn't happen to your family.

1) Start the Conversation. Even if your spouse is happily hands-off, it's important that he or she is looped in on…

Even people who think they've ticked off all of the usual boxes on their estate-planning to-do lists may have overlooked an increasingly important component of the process: ensuring the proper management and orderly transfer of their digital assets. Just as traditional estate-planning relates to the management and transfer of financial accounts and hard assets, digital estate-planning…

Keeping tabs on the estate-planning rules during the past few years has been a little like watching Olympic-level table tennis: The action moves quickly, and it's difficult to keep up. However, no matter how laws and rules change, there are a few basic tasks that are actually pretty evergreen and that everyone should execute. Five such estate-planning to-dos are outlined below.

1)…

The arrival of a baby is an exciting event, but it also brings additional financial challenges and decisions for the whole family. Outlined below are four key financial considerations to help new parents prepare for many of life's unknowns.

Prepare for the Unexpected: Check your individual health insurance policy for specific guidelines on adding coverage for your newborn (most plans…

The tax-deferred compounding you get via an IRA or a company retirement plan enables you to grow your savings without having to fork over taxes on your investment earnings year in and year out. However, at some point, required minimum distributions, or RMDs, will take effect. All retirees must begin taking RMDs from their tax-deferred retirement plans by April 1st of the year following the…