Estate Planning News

My associate Joe Sullender, senior vice president for investments at Wells Fargo Advisors, recently became aware of a potential tax consequence of leaving your Thrift Savings Plan balance to your spouse in a beneficiary participant account.

If it wasn't apparent who would take over Ananda when Swami Kriyananda died toward the end of April, he made it pretty clear in his will: "My spiritual successor shall be John E. Novak ." Kriyananda's last will and testament provided that the nine-stone astrological bangle, which Kriyananda wore in his capacity of spiritual director of Ananda, ... (more)

As the State of Wisconsin recently warned, Consumers should be wary of 'living trusts' preparers.

When rapper Heavy D passed away in 2011 from a pulmonary embolism, the public saw his family rally together and settle his affairs.

Today, LL.M. degrees, a.k.a. Masters of Law, or, for the fancy, the Latin name Legum Magister, are offered in a variety of legal specialties ranging from trial advocacy to intellectual property to international law to taxation.

On May 14, 2013, Governor Dayton signed a bill modifying Minnesota Statutes Sections 517 and 518.

There is a need for farmers to pay closer attention to estate planning if they want to pass on their farming operations.

There have been several revisions in Capital Gains tax and surtaxes for the financial year 2013, and to comply with these changes, clients require the services of experts.

"Portability" is a relatively new concept in estate planning. Introduced in 2012 for a two-year period, portability allows a spouse to transfer or make "portable" the unused portion of his or her lifetime gift tax exclusion to the other spouse.

Q: In last week's column you wrote about what information, papers and estate planning documents to keep on hand for my beneficiaries and how to organize them with a guidebook that I can purchase from the Hospice Foundation.

A video missing Utah mom Susan Powell made a year before she disappeared indicates her marriage to Josh Powell was troubled and she wanted documented proof of their assets.

Due to the recent signing of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, now is the time to review your estate plan in order to mitigate tax exposure, especially if you are a high-net-worth individual or own a family business.

In case you haven't noticed, it's been a very interesting start to the year within the financial world.

Oftentimes people spend hours of hard time, energy and dollars investing in their important personal legal documents with the intent of stashing them away in the back of a drawer after they're signed them.

Michael P. Panebianco, Esq., AEP, vice president, Cambridge Trust Company of N.H. in Portsmouth, has been elected president of the N.H. Estate Planning Council for a one-year term.

Mahatma Gandhi's last will and testament and a pair of his iconic sandals have been sold at auction along with 50 items of memorabilia .

Receiving $54 million in consulting fees for a decade's work on her own family's offshore trusts is unusual and probably saved U.S. Commerce Secretary nominee Penny Pritzker on taxes, according to estate experts.

The CFP designation is the highest professional designation in the financial planning field.

As farm land prices increase and equipment, buildings, and other assets are added, farm valuations can often exceed the federal estate tax exemption, making estate planning crucial for preserving one's farming legacy.

A Rhode Island estate planning lawyer's effort to revoke his guilty plea in a controversial $30 million elder insurance fraud case was a "bizarre" and unjustified "hatchet job" on Joseph Caramadre's former counsel, a federal judge said Monday.