Wall Street Journal: Don't die before leaving your heirs access to a list of your online user names and passwords, your military discharge papers and proof of any copyrights, trademarks and patents that you own. As we explained in our Weekend Investor article “The 25 Documents You Need Before You Die,” leaving behind a will and an estate plan—and any other end-of-life instructions—isn't enough. You also have to make your heirs aware of them and leave the documents where they can find them. Letting a trusted family member know that you keep a list of user names and passwords with an attorney or in a safe-deposit box is important not just so they have access to bank accounts or so they can keep up with online

Record Online.com: If you or a loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another cognitive disease, it is important to meet with an elder law estate planning attorney as soon as possible. An Alzheimer's diagnosis is shocking and overwhelming to all concerned. Immediate care-giving and medical issues take center stage. But if legal matters are left untended, you risk losing your home and life savings as the disease progresses.

The Lowell Sun: Today, more than ever, charitable institutions stand to benefit as the first wave of the baby boomers reaches the stage where they're able to make significant charitable gifts. If you're like many Americans, you too may have considered donating to charity. And though writing a check at year-end is one of the most common ways to give, planned giving may be more effective. What is planned giving? Planned giving is the process of thinking strategically about charitable giving to maximize the personal, financial and tax benefits of your gifts. For example, you may need to receive income in exchange for the assets you donate, or you may want to be involved in deciding how your gift is spent — things that typically can't

Estate of Denial: Celebrity heirs fighting over the estate is far from uncommon … the Trial & Heirs Blog never has a shortage of material to cover. But, it is unusual when an ugly court battle starts before the celebrity dies and then only continues to grow more heated as time passes. That certainly has been the case with the Dennis Hopper Estate. The Easy Rider star filed for divorce from his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy-Hopper, in January, 2010. Victoria is about six years younger than Dennis’ oldest child, daughter Marin Hopper. The two have been feuding for some time now.

Boom!  Boomers & Beyond:  Where there’s a will . . . there are relatives. This truth, proved time and again in probate proceedings and will contests, holds a clear lesson: Good estate planning is about more than taxes. It requires careful consideration of who should receive your assets, and how and when they should receive them, as well as a clear statement of your wishes and expectations.

Smart Money:  You have to hand it to Congress: It's doing its best to turn one of the more wearying parts of retirement planning — getting your estate in order — into something of a party. The challenge for you and me is to stay clearheaded. The Tax Relief Act of 2010, passed in December, made headlines primarily for retaining the Bush-era income tax cuts. But lawmakers also approved changes in estate and gift taxes that left lawyers and accountants gushing. (“Unprecedented.” “Historic.” “Astonishing.”) Most notably, the gift-tax exemption jumps from $1 million to $5 million, which means Americans can now bequeath the latter amount without paying a dime in taxes. This exemption is separate from the annual gift-tax exclusion, currently $13,000.

Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog:  Owning a vacation home in Mexico or retaining Canadian citizenship are just two scenarios that can create complex estate planning and tax issues.  Below are five scenarios that can affect estate planning in a global economy. 1. Owning a home in Mexico A home in Mexico is likely acquired through a fideicomiso (similar to a trust), and the IRS considers fideicomios to be trusts that are subject to reporting requirements for foreign trusts. As a result, homeowners must file Form 3520 and 3520-A every year to stay in compliance with IRS regulations. Additionally, after March 18, 2010, homeowners who use or let relatives use the home are subject to income tax on the property’s fair rental value. Owners have

Wall Street Journal:   It isn't enough simply to sign a bunch of papers establishing an estate plan and other end-of-life instructions. You also have to make your heirs aware of them and leave the documents where they can find them. Consider: At least 10 states have been investigating whether some of the country's largest insurers are failing to pay out unclaimed life policies to beneficiaries. California and Florida have held public hearings on the issue in recent weeks.

Online Athens:  The new estate tax laws have provided a false sense of security for those of us who do not have an estate worth more than $10 million. However, in 2013 we are going to be revisiting the issue of estate taxes all over again as the law sunsets back to the $1 million estate tax exemption.  The sunset provision makes the estate tax law an average taxpayer's problem again. Since life insurance benefits often are the largest asset in an estate, I would like to address the great myth about the taxation of life insurance benefits.

Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog:  As I previously blogged, taxpayers can now convert a 401(k) or IRA to a Roth IRA and give their grandchildren up to $5 million without incurring the generation-skipping tax.  However, this tax break may close before 2013 if Congress does not act soon.

The BATF National Firearms Act (NFA) Branch announced that as of July 2011, ATF Forms 1, 2, 10 and ATF Form 5320.20 will be assigned to a legal instruments examiner for processing according to the State of the applicant’s address. The NFA Branch also will begin assigning ATF Forms 3, 4 and 9 applications to examiners by the State of the transferor’s address. Applications already pending at the time of the change will continue to be processed by the examiner to whom they were previously assigned. Historically, applications in the NFA Branch have been assigned to legal instruments examiners alphabetically based on the name of the transferor or applicant. The BATF expects this change in the assignment of applications to better enable NFA examiners to

Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog:   Two changes to the tax code now give investors with large 401(k) accounts the ability to give their grandchildren a tax-free inheritance of $400 million or more. Congress created this estate-tax break in two steps last year…

Estate of Denial:  Peter Falk set up a trust years before he was formally diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, and the bulk of his multi-million dollar estate is being left to his devoted loving wife of more than thirty three years, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting. The Columbo star passed away at his home in Beverly Hills on Thursday night, and his wife was at his side when he died.

Sun Herald.com:  Who gets Mom's wedding ring? When siblings look at what a parent leaves behind as their inheritance, it's not always easy to sort out who gets what.

Washington Times:  You don’t have to be Leona Helmsley to want the best for your pet after you die. Helmsley left her dog, Trouble, $12 million when she passed away in 2007. A judge cut the award to $2 million and awarded some of the money to her grandchildren, but the Maltese still lived a life of luxury until his death in December. The dog’s death was announced this month by the Helmsley trust. Pet estate planning has grown since Helmsley’s will made headlines. Today, there are retirement homes for pets across the country, and at least 45 states allow for pet trusts. A pet trust is an agreement that specifies how an owner wants a pet to be cared for, including details on who

Estate of Denial: 1) Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s will bequeathed all his assets to the Communist Workers League.  However as the will remained unwitnessed, all his assets reverted to his estranged father and brother leaving his long-time partner Eva Gabrielsson with nothing.   She is refusing to hand over his final unpublished manuscript, which would be the fourth instalment in the best-selling Millenium saga.

CNN:  The estate of the late actress Anna Nicole Smith has lost a Supreme Court appeal in a longstanding fight to secure a share of her deceased husband's fortune. The 5-4 ruling Thursday was the latest chapter in a tedious legal soap opera, over the kind of evidence a separate bankruptcy court may hear when deciding various claims and counterclaims. State courts generally hear probate cases, while bankruptcy proceedings are confined to federal courts. The high court's 38-page decision will now likely put an end to this particular legal dispute.

Forbes.com:  Do it yourself estate planning? Would you also perform surgery on yourself? How about representing yourself in court – even with a couple of seasons of “Law & Order” under your belt? With the help of Google and other search engines, we’ve become a society of “do-it-yourselfers” where seemingly everyone can repair a leaky shower, diagnose a medical condition or resolve a thorny legal matter. In the legal and estate planning community, practitioners have seen even relatively wealthy clients, who stand to benefit the most from expert planning advice, use consumer software to draft their own documents.  Generally they are successful – at least as long as they are alive!  Most will never know the woeful inadequacies of their self-drafted documents – this knowledge

Yahoo! Finance:  Surprise: This tax-savvy strategy can be used whether or not you convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. I was a guest on an estate planning radio show recently when a listener from Traverse City, Mich., phoned with an eye-opening question. “Do I have to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth to make it a ‘stretch' IRA?” she asked.