Taxation

How Forbes Got “Major Errors in Estate Planning” Wrong

November 18, 2013 | by Braverman Law Group

F Forbes recently shared its list of 7 Major Errors in Estate Planning. I’d like to share them, one at a time, with comments, and then add a couple they missed. Rather than swamp you with a treatise, here’s one that I really feel passionate about.

There are so many easy ways to screw up your estate plan – which can damage family relationships for life in many cases – and so few ways to make sure it’s right. I’ll share how our clients get peace of mind that their plan’s going to provide what they need and bring their family closer, not the opposite.

Not Having a Plan

Estate Planning Technology Develops Quickly

November 5, 2013 | by Braverman Law Group

When people think of technology, they think of a fast-paced, growing field. When they think of the law, they tend to think of stagnant printed volumes of laws stacked together in a library. The difference between the pace of technological development in space technology and estate planning technology is not as great as many imagine.

I visited the eye doctor today. My vision has changed a lot since I got my prescription lenses only 6 months ago. I think of optometry as a pretty unchanging area of medicine (“Is it better with one? Or two? One? Or two?”). I was surprised that they had two new tests for me today: to check the health of my areas of my eye deeper than my retina.

Your regular (annual to no-more-than-every-three-years) legal planning check up is similar to your annual eye exam. You and your attorney are searching for the changes that are particular to you (like the testing of your eye’s vision – your prescription). And you’re also looking for changes that apply to most or all patients: the new exam technologies.

Retirement Accounts are Limited in Their Investment Choices

August 13, 2013 | by Braverman Law Group

First, let me share the fabulous news about “Retirement Accounts” then the bad news that I have to tell all the people who ask me about investment choices in a Retirement Account.

Tax-free Versus Tax-deferred

Retirement Accounts – 401(k)s, (403(b)s, IRAs and others – have wonderful tax advantages. Some allow you to put pre-tax money into an account, which then grows tax-free for years or evendecades until you withdraw it. When you withdraw it, you pay tax on the withdrawal. So they aren’t “tax-free”, they’re “tax-deferred.”

Inherited IRAs: Sweet or a Trap?

September 1, 2012 | by Braverman Law Group

The Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Greene covered a Congressional proposal to end this attractive opportunity earlier this year.

Right now, if you inherit an IRA or other tax-advantaged retirement account, you are allowed to stretch out the withdrawals, and therefore the income tax, over the course of your own life expectancy.

Estate planning attorneys have found a way to wrap asset protection around that inherited IRA by putting it into a special tax-advantaged trust.