We’ve been taught since childhood to plan for college, plan our careers, plan our families, and plan for retirement. However, end-of-life planning advice is rarely followed. Survey after survey reveals that most Americans do not have estate plans. Recently, the Huffington Post published “5 reasons to Plan Ahead for the…
The ongoing James Brown estate battle continues and the complexities begin with the value of the estate. As you may recall, his estate plan called for his music empire to be put into a charitable trust and used to help needy students. Nevertheless, despite the fact that his will contained…
The goals of a family foundation may be ensured by appointing family members to head up the foundation. Children or siblings of the deceased are usually appointed to run these foundations, with the hopes that they know better than anyone unrelated to the family how to achieve and maintain the…
If you are planning to issue your next $100 million tax payment to the IRS via check, better make arrangements for an alternate payment method. The IRS has announced that it will no longer accept payments by check in excess of $100 million. In the modern grocery store, scanners are…
The IRS enacted a new law that required any estates filing Form 706 after July 31, 2015 to report the value of the estate within 30 days after filing the estate form. However, the IRS never issued any implementing regulations for the law. As a result, the IRS has recently…
Baby Boomers have long dictated trends and styles. Today’s Boomers continue to establish trends as they begin their down-sizing moves. Estate sales are a growing niche as older adults scale back their lifestyles. Estate sales have become big business as aging Americans decide that they’d rather let someone else handle…
A recent article in Marketwatch’s Moneyologist column, "What to do when a parent dies and leaves no will," starts with a sad example of how families fall apart when the lack of estate planning pits children against each other. The woman recounts how her father told her and her sister…
Historical wills can offer a window into the past and provide researchers a new perspective on history. Today, old wills for such luminary figures as Herman Melville, Samuel Morse, J.P. Morgan and many other historical figures, can be easily accessed on the web. The well-known genealogical website, Ancestry.com, spent two…
We all love our pets! Leslie Ann Mandel really loved her 32 cockatiels, and her will included a mention of each and every one of her precious pets. Mandel even put $100,000 into a trust for their care and left detailed instructions about how to care for them. She appointed…
Estate plans can outline everything from the disposition of family heirlooms to the distribution of vast land and property holdings. Recently, the $500 million art collection of the estate of shopping center magnate A. Alfred Taubman was in the news. Taubman’s collection is thought to be one of the most…