Estate Planning Services
Estate planning has multiple objectives. Most people think of estate planning as when you die. However, there are other items in estate planning such as powers, trusts, trust protectors and taxes.
Yes, there’s a need for a will but the will should pour over into a trust to avoid probate. Probate will charge 8-10% of you assets total for costs. A judge will control it with a referee from the probate court charging you as they go along. To avoid probate all assets should be in a trust with the exception of pension plans.
There are two types of powers. Health Power and Pre-Death Power for asset management. The powers go into effect one of two ways.
Springing Power- meaning it takes effect when you no longer have capacity.
General Power- takes effect the moment you sign it. If you do not trust a person they should not have this power. If you do trust them this should not scare you.
A trust will allow your assets to be used in the manner you wished for the benefit of your beneficiaries. You can also use partnerships to better manage specific assets of the trust.
As mentioned above, a trust protector is like a CEO inside the trust. The trustee protector is not the trustee and has no personal stake in the assets of the trust. We think it’s a good idea.
Everyone thinks about death taxes. How do we mitigate or extend the tax payments? How do we use life time exclusion for both spouses after the death of the first? Are the taxes due at death or over times? Proper valuation of asset value is critical.
The one area everyone forgets about in California is property tax. What can you do and how do you maintain your current property tax value? Maintaining the current property tax value can be a significant cash flow advantage to your beneficiaries.
If you use L-SAP estate planning and taxes will integrated with all other L-SAP items.