Estate taxes don’t apply for the vast majority of estates in the United States, however, there are 17 locations with their own inheritance and estate taxes. A report from the Internal Revenue Service reveals tax data from the year 2020 showing that over 1200 taxpayers ended up owing estate taxes to the tune of $9.3 […]

Who you choose to serve as an executor and the information at preplanning you do for them can make a big difference on how easy it is for them to handle probate. Executors, also known as personal representatives, have important responsibilities that all must be handled with care. The first of these is to begin […]

An executor or personal representative is responsible for handling many aspects of probate, including the distribution of assets once other administration issues have been managed. However, prematurely passing on these assets to beneficiaries can come with consequences. It might seem easier or even a good way to make beneficiaries happy by making those distributions right […]

Many sad stories about celebrities highlight the importance of estate planning. Many of them leave behind complex assets and high value items. Without estate planning, this leaves their loved ones coping with probate problems for months or even years. A similar situation applies to those entrepreneurs who don’t look at their personal and professional estate […]

If parents create wills naming contingent beneficiaries as their two adult children, there is always the possibility that the adult children will pass away before the parents. This can have implications for the contingent beneficiary’s share. Language of the created will impacts what happens with each beneficiary’s share. Some wills allow the surviving sibling to […]

When is the last time you really sat down and reviewed your estate plan? It’s probably been awhile. If anything has changed in your life since the last time you made this plan, now is a great time to review. Whether you’ve adopted, had grandchildren, had a change in marital status, or simply accumulated more […]

If you are holding title to a piece of real estate property that you intend to pass on to your loved ones and it’s in a different location, you’ll need to think carefully about how this location could impact your planning options. One of the best ways to approach this strategy overall is to schedule […]

If you are a family member, beneficiary, or appointed executor, you might have questions about how that probate is handled when a loved one passes away. Understanding the MS will probate process can make things easier for all the people mentioned above to understand what goes into this and some of the common pitfalls that […]