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Index
Title
Contents
Introduction
Who Needs This Book
How to Use This Book
How This Book is Organized
Icons Used in This Book
Part I : Estate Planning Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Congratulations: You Have an Estate!
What Is an Estate?
Why You Need to Plan Your Estate
Why Your Estate-Planning Goals Are Different from Your Neighbors’
Why Estate-Planning Lingo Is Not Really a Foreign Language
The Critical Path Method to Planning Your Estate
Getting Help with Your Estate Planning
Chapter 2: Bean Counting — Figuring Out What You’re Worth
Calculating the Value of Your Real Property
Calculating the Value of Everything Else: Your Personal Property
Dead Reckoning: Subtracting Your Debts from Your Assets
Giving Gifts Throughout Your Life to Reduce Your Estate’s Value
Calculating Adjustments in Your Estate’s Value Due to Life Changes
Part II : Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
Chapter 3: Understanding the Basics of Wills
Planning for Your Will
Getting to Know the Different Types of Wills
Choosing Your Will’s Contents
Safeguarding Your Will
Changing, Amending, and Revoking Your Will
Protecting Your Loved Ones from Your Unloved Ones
Figuring Out Your Will Status
Chapter 4: Tied Hands and Helping Hands: What You Can and Can’t Do with Your Will
Making Your Peace with Statutes That Affect Your Will
Identifying Statutes that Your Will Can Change
Living (and Dying) with the Laws that Your Will Can’t Change
Chapter 5: Probate: Top of the Ninth for Your Estate
Probing Probate: What You Should Know
Knowing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Probate
Streamlining the Probate Process
Appointing Your Person In Charge
Thinking Things Through When Someone Asks You To Be a Personal Rep
Chapter 6: Dodging Probate: Saving Time and Money with a Will Substitute
Understanding Will Substitutes
Sorting through the List of Will Substitutes
Identifying Some Less Common but Worthy Will Substitutes
Part III : Matters of Trust
Chapter 7: Understanding Trusts
Defining Trusts, Avoiding Hype
Trust Power — Making Your Beneficiaries Smile
Sorting Out Trusts — from Here to Eternity
Chapter 8: Trusts You May Want to Trust — or Not
Saying “I Do” to a Marriage-Oriented Trust
Considering Charitable Trusts
Protecting Your Estate With Protective Trusts
GRAT, GRUT, GRIT: Chewing over the Grantor-Retained Trusts
Sidestepping Estate Taxes with an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust
Chapter 9: Working a Trust Into Your Estate Plan
Linking Your Estate-Related Tax Planning with Your Trust Planning
Looking at Your Goals and Objectives for Setting up Trusts
Deciding What Property to Place in Trust
Linking Your Estate-Planning and Trust Goals with Specific Property
Stepping Back and Comparing Both Trust and Nontrust Options
Weighing Trust Tradeoffs
Finalizing Your Choices — Dotting I’s and Crossing T’s
Part IV : Life, Death, and Taxes
Chapter 10: Preparing for the Tug of War with the Taxman
Navigating through the Bermuda Triangle of Federal Taxes
Deciphering State Inheritance and Estate Taxes
Protecting Your Property (Including Home Sweet Home!) from the Estate Recovery Act
Chapter 11: The Gift Tax: Isn’t Giving a Gift Enough?
Giving a Gift: The Basics
Looking Inside Three Common Gift Tax Situations
Entering the Twilight Zone of Credits and Exclusions
Gift Splitting
Valuing Gifts
Filing Gift Tax Forms
Chapter 12: Skipping Around the Generation Skipping Transfer Tax
The GSTT: A Parable
Taking Comfort from the Exemption: A Cool Million and Rising
Playing Hopscotch: Understanding Generation-Skipping Transfers
Making Sense of GSTT Tax Rates
Looking Deeper into Generation-Skipping Transfers and the GSTT
Chapter 13: Paying or Not Paying the Death Tax: That’s the Question
Discovering Federal Estate Tax Basics
Digging Down to the Bottom Line
Choosing How to Pay Estate Taxes
Filing the Estate Tax Return
Stepping Up to the Plate and Filling the Bases (Basis)
Chapter 14: Planning to Minimize All Your Estate-Related Taxes
Figuring Out Where You Are Today
Fortune Telling: Picturing the Future as Best You Can
Hmmm . . . Deciding on Strategies and Tradeoffs
Putting Together a Comprehensive Estate-Related Tax Plan
Part V : Estate Planning for Family Businesses
Chapter 15: Grasping the Basics of Estate Planning for Family Businesses
Defining “Family Business”
Making the Critical Estate-Related Decisions Upfront
How the Form of Business Ownership Affects Your Estate
Calculating the Value of Your Family Business
Dealing with Business Evolution — Stuff Darwin Never Imagined
Chapter 16: Transferring Ownership and Paying Estate Taxes in a Family Business
Exploring the Ins and Outs of Buy-Sell Agreements
Transferring Ownership to a Family Member
Identifying Estate Tax Considerations for Family Businesses
Part VI : Crafting a Comprehensive Estate Plan
Chapter 17: Factoring Insurance into Your Estate Plan
Using Insurance to Protect Your Assets
Sorting Out the Kinds of Coverage You Need
Looking Closer at Life Insurance
Understanding Life Insurance Tax Implications
Asking the Right Estate-Related Questions About Insurance
Chapter 18: Connecting Your Retirement Funds to Your Estate Plans
Deciding What Your Nest Eggs Are Really For
Linking Retirement and Estate Planning: A Tough Job, But You Can Do It
Chapter 19: Estate Planning in Exceptional Situations
Working a Divorce into the Plan
Planning for Unmarried Relationships
Untangling the Complexities of Guardianship and Your Estate
Doomsday Stuff: Factoring Incompetence and Death into Your Plan
Taking Care of Fluffy, Spot, and Bootsie
Part VII : The Part of Tens
Chapter 20: Ten Questions to Get You Rolling on Your Estate Plan
Why Do I Even Need an Estate Plan?
If I Need an Estate Plan, Why Doesn’t Everyone Have One?
What Are My Top Three Estate-Planning Goals?
Whom Do I Want to Take Care Of?
What’s the Best Way to Protect My Children?
How Much Help Do I Need?
What’s My Budget for Estate Planning?
Does My Attorney Have the Right Experience?
Who Are My Confidants about These Plans?
How Do I Know I Can Do My Estate Plan?
Chapter 21: Avoiding Ten Common Mistakes and Problems in Your Will
Forgetting to Review Your Will Annually
Forgetting to Include a Residuary (“Leftovers”) Clause
Forgetting the “Just in Case” Contingencies
Sticking With Your Personal Representative When You Really Need a Substitute
Forgetting About All Those Pesky Statutes that Affect Wills
Getting Too Precise in Your Will
Using Your Beneficiaries as Will Witnesses
Failing to Factor in the Personal Side
Keeping Important Information From Your Attorney
Rushing Through Your Will
Chapter 22: Ten Estate-Planning Resources on the Internet
Smartmoney.com
Estateretirementplanning.com
Estateplanning.com
Savewealth.com
Moneycentral.msn.com
Estateplanforyou.com
Law.freeadvice.com
Actec.org
Nolo.com
Nafep.com
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