Be Careful About Picking Beneficiaries for Your IRAs and 401(k)s

Inheriting IRA or 401(k) proceeds from a friend or relative can be a potentially huge windfall, but it can also be a sizable tax headache. For both the giver and the recipient, it’s worth getting some advice.
Bank accounts, stocks, real estate and life insurance proceeds generally pass to heirs free of income tax. However, inherited [...]

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Providing for Children of a Previous Marriage

For many married couples, when one spouse dies, all marital property passes to the surviving spouse. This means that the surviving spouse has sole responsibility for deciding what happens to that property when he or she dies. In the traditional family, this is rarely a concern. But, more and more often, the so-called traditional family [...]

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Tax-Wise Gifting Strategies for Seniors

You’ve spent most of your life building your wealth. Now, your concern may have shifted to reducing your estate and saving taxes. Making gifts is one way to reduce your estate. But because gifting can trigger federal gift tax, as well as federal generation-skipping transfer tax (GSTT) if the gift is to someone who is [...]

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Wills: The Cornerstone of Your Estate Plan

If you care about what happens to your money, home, and other property after you die, you need to do some estate planning. There are many tools you can use to achieve your estate planning goals, but a will is probably the most vital. Even if you’re young or your estate is modest, you should [...]

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Will Your Kid’s Inheritance Make Her a Monster?

The airwaves are full of cautionary tales of young people with too much money too soon – wretched excess is in, and responsibility seems, well, pretty boring. And your last name doesn’t have to be “Hilton” for you to worry.  Inheritances, trust funds and other benefits from hard-earned family fortunes of any size can affect [...]

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Should I Prepay My Funeral Expenses?

In a word, No.
Prepaying funeral expenses is essentially a form of life insurance. Insurance works best when it covers expenses that are catastrophic if they happen, but have a low likelihood of happening.
Funeral expenses don’t fit either criterion: there’s a high likelihood that you are going to die (in the neighborhood of 100%) [...]

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Extreme Philanthropy: The 50% League

Anne & Christopher Ellinger of Arlington, Mass. run a foundation called Bolder Giving to inspire people to realize their full giving potential.
More than 88 people to date have joined the organization’s 50% League and given away half of their financial assets, or half of their income or business profits for at least three years.
According to [...]

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Family Letter of Instruction

A Family Letter of Instruction is an information inventory listing family advisors, assets, liabilities, account information, insurance details, medical history, employment records, location of important documents, funeral arrangements/wishes, emergency directives, and desires for your family.
Although not a legally binding document, a family letter of instruction goes a long way in easing the emotional burden that [...]

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What is a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF)?

A donor advised fund (DAF) is a very useful charitable giving tool that offers many advantages over traditional methods of giving. Donor-advised funds are also a cost-effective alternative to private foundations in many cases.
The fund itself is actually a public charity that makes grants to other charities based on your recommendations.
This unique structure allows [...]

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