Like any other business owner, farmers need to carefully plan how the farm will be passed on to heirs. However, farmers do have some unique estate planning issues to consider. In the eyes of the law, a farm is just a type of business. Like any other business, it can be passed to other people [...]
In the past few years, many services have sprung up that offer to help people create their own estate plans—such as by offering them downloadable forms. These services are often inexpensive but also risky. You can find a lot of advice on the Internet that will tell you that estate planning really is not that [...]
Parents often assume that when their children go to college if anything happens to the children, the parents will be able to handle everything just like they did when the children were younger. They are wrong unless they have done some basic estate planning for their children. In many families just because a child is [...]
If you have minor children, then a good estate plan is the ultimate security blanket for your children. If a parent passes away, the minor children are not going to magically be able to take care of themselves. That only happens on TV and in movies. It is also not an automatic guarantee that a [...]
In the absence of a technological breakthrough that scientists are nowhere close to making you are going to pass away. It is inevitable, so you might as well come to terms with it and talk to your family about it. Regardless whether we are willing to accept it - we all know we are going [...]
Estate planning is not likely to be a high priority for most recent high school graduates. It should be. Most high school graduates have going to college or getting a job on their minds. They do not often think about possibly passing away and, therefore, creating an estate plan. That is natural as they are [...]
One common provision in divorce settlement agreements should be looked over carefully by an estate planning attorney. In divorce property settlement agreements it is common for the spouse who will be responsible for paying child support to agree to also maintain life insurance. The insurance benefits are meant to provide for the child support should [...]
After a musician passes away you can never be certain what will happen to his or her legacy. Some musicians continue to be very successful commercially. Their estates continue to grow. Other musicians fade into obscurity. It is tempting to think that what happens to a musician's legacy after he or she passes away is [...]
For as much attention as the federal estate tax receives many people still have misconceptions about how it works. The estate tax is a common source of complaints both by and to politicians. In all of the discussion about the tax what often gets lost is how the tax actually operates. This leads many people [...]
One aspect of the seemingly neverending Michael Jackson estate saga is moving toward a conclusion after a long delay. For years Michael Jackson's former manager Thome Thome has been trying to get money out of the singer's estate that he says he is due on commissions from the proceeds from the sale of the musician's [...]