Wall Street Journal:  Naming a guardian for a young child in a will can be one of the most important things a parent does. It can also be one of the hardest—in fact, many people don't make a will because they can't face the job. “This is where I have people cry in meetings most,” says Margaret Sager, a partner at the law firm Heckscher Teillon Terrill & Sager, P.C. in West Conshohocken, Pa. But estate-planning professionals say as hard as the question is, it's also crucial to answer it. Otherwise, it leaves the fate of an orphaned child entirely up to a stranger—a judge. Although judges formally appoint guardians in all cases, they almost always choose the person named in the will. Still, many

Los Angeles Times:  “I could show you case after case,” said Dr. Neil S. Wenger. “I could bet you million-to-1 odds these patients would not want to be in this situation.” He was talking about patients in critical condition who are “attached to machines, being kept alive” in hospitals, many of them suffering. A common reason for that, said Wenger, director of UCLA's Health System Ethics Center, is that fewer than one-third of us make our healthcare wishes known in advance of critical illness or injury. So if we end up comatose after an accident, or with severe memory loss in old age, we're kept alive, regardless of the cost and regardless of what our wishes might be or how grim the prognosis. It's understandable.

Probate Lawyer Blog:  While being widely loved for spreading reggae music throughout the world, Bob Marley stood for more than just music. His songs promoted freedom for poor and oppressed people throughout the world, social equality, and justice. Marley even won the 1978 United Nations Medal of Peace. Sadly, events surrounding his estate have been anything but consistent with his musical legacy. 2011 marked the 30-year anniversary of the day Marley died of cancer, at the age of 36, on May 11, 1981. In those 30 years, his estate has seen far too many court fights, lawsuits and money-grabs to count. And that legacy of fighting over money doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon. Just last week, a corporation owned by his widow,

Probate Lawyer Blog:  There is no doubt about the greatness of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, his estate planning wasn’t so great. In fact, King made a mistake that too many people make everyday in our country … he procrastinated with his legal planning and died without a will. In large part because of this, his legacy has been marred by fighting among his children over the handling of his estate, including claims of secrecy, mismanagement and misappropriating assets. Years ago, MLK’s heirs formed a corporation to manage King’s estate, but then they fought over control over the corporation. You can read Trial & Heirs’ coverage of the lawsuit between the King children here. Luckily, the heirs were able to reach a settlement and

IRS.gov:  Individuals and businesses making contributions to charity should keep in mind several important tax law provisions that have taken effect in recent years. Some of these changes include the following: Special Charitable Contributions for Certain IRA Owners This provision, currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2011, offers older owners of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) a different way to give to charity. An IRA owner, age 70½ or over, can directly transfer tax-free up to $100,000 per year to an eligible charity. This option, created in 2006, is available for distributions from IRAs, regardless of whether the owners itemize their deductions. Distributions from employer-sponsored retirement plans, including SIMPLE IRAs and simplified employee pension (SEP) plans, are not eligible. To qualify, the funds must

Times-Herald Record:  In elder law estate planning, we often think of trusts, wills, powers of attorney, health-care proxies and living wills as documents and tools to express our wishes in the event of disability or death. One other very important facet of planning is the “beneficiary designation,” a contractual document that directs where an asset goes when you pass away. Most commonly, we see beneficiary designations for life insurance policies, annuities and IRAs and other qualified plans. A proper plan includes careful decision-making regarding the beneficiary, with broad-ranging effects on keeping assets in the bloodline and protecting assets from creditors and nursing home costs. Inheritance trusts Inheritance trusts are an increasingly popular way to keeps assets in the bloodline and protect your inheritance to your

US News & World Report:  Because you've worked hard to create a secure and comfortable lifestyle for your family, you'll want to ensure that you have a sound financial plan that includes trust and estate planning. With some forethought, you may be able to minimize gift and estate taxes and preserve more of your assets for those you care about. A qualified financial professional and tax professional can help ensure you are minimizing taxes and maximizing gains for your heirs. You can bring this four-part checklist to your initial meeting to discuss how to make your plan comprehensive and up-to-date. Part 1: Communicating your wishes •Do you have a will? •Are you comfortable with the executor(s) and trustee(s) you have selected? •Have you executed a

Law Firm Newswire: It might not be something your children can pull out from under the tree and unwrap this holiday season, but the gift they may appreciate the most is the gift of asset protection. “With family as the focus of so much attention during the holidays, it’s a natural time to consider their financial security,” said Brandon estate planning attorney Reginald Osenton. “No matter what age your children are, the time is never wrong to plan for the future.” Even though most people tell their loved ones how they want their estate managed when they are gone, the only way to ensure it is done correctly is to put it in writing. “We put together plans for families so that when the time

Forbers:  Applying Murphy’s Law, “If anything can go wrong, it will,” to estate planning is crucial because in this case when something does go wrong, it goes very wrong and you aren’t around to fix it. Murphy’s Law at first glance appears to be overly pessimistic but the original intention of Capt. Edward A. Murphy wasn’t to depress anyone; it was to have a successful outcome. Edward Murphy was an engineer who was involved in the U.S. Army Air Force Aero Medical Laboratory’s project MX-981. Project MX-981 was designed to test the effects of deceleration forces of high magnitude on the human body. When a technician wired all of the strain gauges backwards, Capt. Murphy was heard muttering his famous phrase and the rest is

AZCentral:  A South Florida man willed his historic house worth $1 million to the U.S. government to help eliminate the country's growing debt.  The Miami Herald reports that Uncle Sam put the Coral Gables house up for auction Saturday. The winning bid was $1.175 million.  The house belonged to James H. Davidson Jr. who lived there from his teenage years until he died last December at 87.  He also left $1 million to the government.

Wealth Strategies Journal:  “For a limited time, married taxpayers can make lifetime gifts of assets worth up to $10 million without paying federal gift taxes or other transfer taxes.  The exemption for gift taxes, estate taxes, and generation skipping transfer (GST) taxes was fixed at $5 million per taxpayer when Congress extended the Bush-era tax cuts through 2012. Married couples can now give away up to $10 million and single people can give away up to $5 million without incurring gift or GST taxes, as adjusted for prior taxable gifts, which is a pretty powerful planning opportunity.

Estate planning attorneys Cecil Smith and Carol Gonnella have written an informative article about the coming impact of federal estate tax laws next year and the year after.  The article starts: “The estate tax laws are in a state of flux, and no one is sure what Congress will do in the near future. This article is about the laws today, and the importance of planning now rather than waiting until Congress may … or may not … act. It addresses tax liability in a broad sense, and does not take into account the impact of state death taxes, if any, or the implementation of advanced estate planning strategies such as LLCs, QPRTs, BERTs, ILITs, GRATs, Charitable Gifts, etc, to not only creditor protect assets

Fox News:  A newly publicized will by an heiress to a Montana copper mining fortune leaves most of her $400 million estate to her family, while a will signed just weeks later left nothing to relatives. The childless Huguette Clark died in May at age 104 — a last breath of New York's Gilded Age that produced the Rockefellers, Astors and Vanderbilts. Her relatives brought the new will to light on Monday: They filed court papers asking a Surrogate's Court judge to involve them in proceedings about how her money was spent — and by whom — while she was alive. Clark's relatives accuse her co-executors, attorney Wallace Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler, of plundering her fortune. The two were among the few who for

Forbes:  Did you know that family gatherings during the holidays are a great time to talk about celebrities, such as Whitney Houston, and how they can help your family avoid fighting when someone dies? This is Part 2 of Trial & Heirs’ Top 5 Celebrity-Based Estate Planning Conversation Starters for Thanksgiving 2011: (Did you miss Part 1? Click here.) 3. Whitney Houston Whitney Houston has been locked in a vicious court battle with her step-mother over a $1 million life insurance policy from Whitney’s father, which named Whitney as the sole beneficiary. Whitney’s step-mother, Barbara, sued Whitney and claimed the money was meant for her, not Whitney. Whitney had lent her father money and held a private mortgage over his home, which Barbara received when

 The Probate Lawyer Blog:  What family won’t be talking about Kim Kardashian and Michael Jackson at their Thanksgiving dinner? Dishing celebrity dirt is as natural as turkey and pumpkin pie. But did you ever think that celebrity gossip could actually help your family? We use celebrity stories to turn the often-awkward conversation about estate planning into something fun and entertaining. Let’s face it … no one really likes to think about planning for what happens after they pass away. But, it’s the family left behind that pays the price when the proper planning isn’t done. A great way to get the dialogue flowing, and to turn an awkward conversation into something fun and engaging, is with celebrity stories. What better time to do this than

ABA Journal:  The Associated Press has a story out discussing how most boomers don’t have living wills. They also are light in other estate planning areas. Estate of Denial® is often the first in line willing to point out probate abuse that occurs via the use of instruments like wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney. Living wills and healthcare proxies can bring their complications as well. That said, we also would never want our message to be misconstrued as being against proper estate planning. Though the current probate system is highly problematic, the answer lies in fixing it, not in the avoidance of action. “The fix” is no easy task, but it is critical if America wants to continue on an ideological path similar

Online Athens:  I want to highlight some of the most common estate planning mistakes I think people routinely make (knowing that I can’t possibly cover them all in one column). You will notice that I’m not going to discuss the estate tax beyond saying that very few people are subject to it and that it can be effectively managed by an attorney and financial planner with expertise. In my experience, No. 1 and No. 3 are the root causes of the other issues. 1. Failure to plan: I am constantly surprised to see how many people do not have basic estate planning documents in place. The statistics consistently say more than 50 percent of Americans do not have a will, so if you happen to

Reno Gazette-Journal:  It's so tempting to want to give the grandchildren everything and put their wants and needs first. However, one of the common money mistakes grandparents make is to put spending on grandkids ahead of their own retirement security. Here are three money missteps grandparents make and ways to avoid them: 1. Excessively spoiling grandchildren Financial advisers and estate planners have all kinds of stories about retirees who insist on spending significant amounts of their savings on grandchildren. Too often they fail to recognize the severity of the risk it poses for their own retirement security.

T. Rowe Price:  This basic “to do” list organizes some of the topics and action steps you'll want to consider. These steps should help you prepare for an informed discussion with your estate planning attorney. 1. Consider putting in place a durable power of attorney, an advance health care directive and organ donor papers. 2. Write down, in your own words, how you want your assets to be distributed after your death. Review all contracts and beneficiary designations you have in force today and confer with your estate planning attorney to see if they will actually accomplish what you intend and offer the appropriate level of control and flexibility. Make sure to update your will/trust periodically. 3. Make sure your plan leaves adequate sources of