Book 5

Planning Your Estate

Contents at a Glance

1. Chapter 1: Yes, You Have an Estate
   1. What Is an Estate?
   2. Why You Need to Plan Your Estate
   3. Why Your Estate-Planning Goals Are Different from Your Neighbors’
   4. The Critical Path Method to Planning Your Estate
   5. Getting Help with Your Estate Planning
2. Chapter 2: Bean Counting: Figuring Out What You’re Worth
   1. Calculating the Value of Your Real Property
   2. Calculating the Value of Everything Else: Your Personal Property
   3. Dead Reckoning: Subtracting Your Debts from Your Assets
   4. Giving Gifts throughout Your Life to Reduce Your Estate’s Value
   5. Calculating Adjustments in Your Estate’s Value Due to Life Changes
3. Chapter 3: Probate and How to Dodge It
   1. Probing Probate: What You Should Know
   2. Knowing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Probate
   3. Streamlining the Probate Process
   4. Appointing Your Person in Charge
   5. Thinking Things Through When Someone Asks You to Be a Personal Rep
   6. Understanding Will Substitutes
   7. Sorting through the List of Will Substitutes
   8. Identifying Some Less Common but Worthy Will Substitutes
4. Chapter 4: Understanding Trusts
   1. Defining Trusts, Avoiding Hype
   2. Trust Power — Making Your Beneficiaries Smile
   3. Sorting Out Trusts — from Here to Eternity
5. Chapter 5: Minimizing Estate-Related Taxes
   1. Figuring Out Where You Are Today
   2. Fortune-Telling: Picturing the Future as Best You Can
   3. Hmmm … Deciding on Strategies and Trade-Offs
   4. Putting Together a Comprehensive Estate-Related Tax Plan