Estate Planning is organizing your life to achieve your goals, both now and after you are gone. This includes:
- Organizing your assets to minimize the impact of disability
- Avoiding probate
- Minimizing income taxation
- Protecting your assets from creditors
- Ensuring your children’s futures
- Instilling your values in your descendants
It has often been said that he who fails to plan, plans to fail. It is true in Estate Planning as in any other endeavor. Without planning, you will leave those you love with a mess on their hands. For example, without planning, your incapacity could prove a nightmare. Who would pay the bills? How would they get the authority to do so? They would have to go to court and have you declared incompetent and have someone appointed as your guardian / conservator. This tedious process would come just as your family would be dealing with the financial and emotional drain of your disability. Any disagreements in the family would make the process even more problematic.
There is a better way. You can plan ahead and avoid these problems and achieve your goals. The basic documents of an estate plan can help you plan for your future and that of your loved ones. A Revocable Trust helps you avoid probate and is very flexible. The trust helps you provide for your own incapacity. Later, after you are gone, the trust can help reinforce the values you have taught your children. It can do that by encouraging or discouraging certain behavior. For example, the trust can match income in certain altruistic professions.
A General Durable Power of Attorney can appoint someone to make financial decisions for you in the event of your incapacity. A Health Care Durable Power of Attorney can appoint someone to make health care decisions for you.
Remember, Estate Planning is life planning. The McGee Law Firm can help you plan for your future and that of your descendants.
Compliments of the McGee Law Firm, Attorney Brandon McGee
Written By: The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys
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