1) Lack of Healthcare and Disability Planning. The majority of deaths occur in hospitals or other institutions. Patients may be incapacitated to the point where they can no longer communicate their healthcare wishes. Advance Directives and a Healthcare Power of Attorney can identify healthcare proxy decision-makers, specify wishes for end-of-life care, and provide...

If your clients choose to use a Standalone Retirement Trust (SRT) to provide asset protection benefits for their beneficiaries, the tax-related asset allocation strategy would be essentially the same as without an SRT, with one small exception.

 

To help minimize additional tax consequences, consider skewing your investment plan toward:

 

Shocking to most people, the retirement account you leave for your spouse can be seized in a divorce, lawsuit, or bankruptcy.

 

3 Options Available To Surviving Spouses

When your surviving spouse inherits your IRA, he or she generally has three options:

 

Cash out the inherited IRA and pay the income tax.

WARNING! The...

Twenty years ago, the Roth IRA first became available to investors as a financial tool for their estate planning needs. These accounts have maintained their popularity because unlike their traditional IRA counterpart, a Roth IRA provides account owners tax-free income during retirement.

In fact, many people chose to convert...

When you think of IRAs, you probably think of retirement. But what happens to your IRA money after you’re gone? The answer depends on how you go about creating your estate plan and selecting beneficiaries, and you might be surprised to find out that your money could end up with...

On June 12, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court—in a unanimous decision—ruled that Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) inherited by anyone other than a spouse are not retirement funds and therefore are not protected from the beneficiary’s creditors in bankruptcy.

The reasoning is, because the beneficiary cannot make additional contributions or delay distributions until retirement, it...

Do you have IRAs or other retirement accounts that you plan to leave to your loved ones?  If so, proceed with caution.  Most people don’t know the law has changed: inherited retirement accounts no longer have asset protection, meaning they can be seized by strangers.

How Can Inherited IRAs Be Protected?  Enter the...

For many people, retirement savings accounts are among the largest assets they have to bequeath to their children and grandchildren in their estate plans.  Sadly, without professional and personally tailored advice about how best to include IRAs in one’s estate plan,...