Some time ago, the powers that be decided it would be best to encourage us to save for our retirement. For individuals, this encouragement can be in the form of the individual retirement account. The benefits of the IRA were so well publicized that the vast majority of workers have established these accounts and the […]

In other articles, we looked at the government’s medical assistance program that’s available to pay for the cost of care at a nursing home. As we saw, that’s available only after you have spent almost all of your own money. In an effort to preserve some of their assets, many who are concerned‚ about cost […]

Who is the beneficiary of your life insurance? Without knowing it, it may be your favorite relative, Uncle Sam. Without considering life insurance, most people need not worry about federal estate tax since your estate must now exceed $5.49 million in 2017 (this is up from $5.45 million in 2016) to be subject to this […]

While most estates are not subject to the federal estate tax, those estates valued in excess of $11.4 million in the year 2019 are. To compensate for these taxes, those concerned about passing on all they’re worth, often purchase life insurance to provide additional funds from which to pay these taxes. Without your knowing it, […]

Due to the recent attention given to the Living Trust in the popular media, I took a somewhat skeptical look at the strategy in another column. The focus of that previous column was to explain that the Living Trust was not the perfect estate planning tool for everyone. I attempted to explain that there are […]