There is generally no incremental learning curve involved in estate planning and everything is new to most individuals when they first start to engage in the process. Before they begin to look into it a lot of people don’t realize that a last will is not something that is just passed around among your loved ones in private. It is a legally binding document that must go through the process of probate.

Probate could be defined as the court supervised process of estate administration. If you look at it from an overview, your estate is not something that is necessarily only of interest to your heirs. If you have any outstanding debts or if there are claims against you that have not yet been resolved your estate must address these issues under the watchful eye of the court. In addition, if anyone wanted to contest your will they would do so before the probate court. When you consider the above you can see why it is important for the executor of the estate to retain the services of a probate attorney.

In addition, even if there are no particular legal challenges the executor that you choose is probably not going to have any experience with the probate process. He or she may not know where to begin, and this is another reason why it is important to involve a probate attorney. This relationship can actually begin when you first identify an estate planning attorney and put your estate plan in place. He or she will help you draw up a last will with the realities of probate in mind, and if you so choose this same attorney can guide your executor through the probate process when that time arrives.

Without the proper representation probate can be time-consuming and potentially confusing to the executor, so if you want to make sure that your wishes are carried out to the letter in an efficient and timely manner a probate lawyer is a must.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The average layperson may not fully understand just how much the legislative processes going on in Washington impact the field of estate planning. We’ve recently gone through crises of sorts regarding approving a budget for this year and raising the debt ceiling so that the federal government can meet its obligations.

Some say that the burden must be shared and that we must increase revenue while reducing spending. Others say that there is no need to increase revenue because lower taxes will always result in a more vibrant economy overall.

As of this writing there is an agreement in place that does not call for any increases in revenue. However, there are those who are adamant about raising taxes on those that they describe as “wealthy.”

The Bush era tax cuts were extended at the beginning of this year via the passage of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.

There were also provisions contained within this measure that provided some estate tax relief. If the Bush cuts would have been allowed to expire at the end of 2010 the estate tax exclusion would have been $1 million and the top rate of the tax would’ve been 55%. But this tax relief bill spared us of this fate and at the present time the maximum rate of the tax is 35% and the exclusion is $5 million.

However, this tax relief may be in jeopardy. 2012 is an election year, and though the government is functioning the debates continue with regard to how the deficit problem should be addressed. The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 expires at the end of 2012 in the same manner that the Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of 2010. If this act does expire with no new legislation being passed in the meantime, we will once again be faced with a $1 million exclusion and a 55% top rate.

This ongoing situation is one of the reasons why it is a good idea to keep in touch with your estate planning attorney and engage in ongoing reviews of your estate plan as relevant changes come down the pike.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

We are all aware of the fact that grandparents and grandchildren often share a very special relationship. When you are planning your estate, making provisions for your grandchildren may well be a priority. Of course you are going to want to do as much as possible for them, so the last thing that you would want to see is the estate tax lopping off a large portion of your legacy, resources that could have otherwise gone to your grandchildren and the rest of the people in your inheritance list.

If the value of your estate exceeds the exclusion threshold, it is subject to the estate tax. Right now that threshold stands at $5 million, and the rate of the tax is 35%. But, at the end of next year the exclusion is scheduled to go down to just $1 million and the top rate of the tax is going up to 55% (unless there are new laws passed between now and then). So, any assets that you have that exceed $1 million will be shaved down by almost half, and no, that in not an error.

What do you do to combat this asset erosion so that you can take care of your grandchildren? One option would be to give tax-free gifts in an effort to reduce the value of your estate, making your grandchildren happy while you are still around to see the smiles cross their faces. Each year you are allowed to give gifts of up to $13,000 to an unlimited number of recipients free of the gift tax.

Since this is a per-person exemption, if you are married you and your spouse could give a total of $26,000 to each grandchild every year. If you plan ahead, you can see how this would be a very effective way to transfer assets in a tax-free manner while reducing the taxable value of your estate in the process.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

There are many of us who have friends, relatives or colleagues who have some type of incapacitating mental, physical or developmental disability. In older times, the families of disabled people used to keep their circumstances a secret; the disability of a family member was a forbidden subject and was not discussed very openly. To make matters worse, very few competent professional advisers existed to offer their help to plan for the special needs of disabled people.

So, the disheartened families of such people were left on their own and they had limited options to ensure proper care for their disabled relatives after their primary care provider grew too old or died. And since there was a certain stigma attached, the needs of the disabled were not advocated and there were limited resources available.

These days estate planning attorneys can provide solutions, and one of the them is called the “special needs trust.” A special needs trust is a trust which provides for a disabled person’s supplemental needs, other than basic health, shelter and sustenance expenses that the beneficiary may be entitled to receive under government programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.

A common feature of these trusts is that they are run either by court appointed trustees or family members. Generally great care is taken in choosing appropriate trustees for the management of trust assets and to deal with future alternate appointments when a special trust for a disabled child or young person is being established.

When you are interested in providing for a person who was special needs you have to wade through a lot of information. A delicate balance must be struck between making resources available while making sure that government benefits are not impacted. Without question, the best way to go about special needs planning is with the assistance of an estate planning attorney.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Life insurance is the quintessential income replacement vehicle, and it is a very important component to most estate plans. Making sure that you have adequate life insurance coverage is a way to protect family members that are relying on your income to maintain their standard of living. This is something for people of all ages to take seriously because you never know what the future holds, and it is certainly much better to be safe than sorry.

But in addition to its value as a vehicle of income replacement, life insurance can be used in other ways when you are planning your estate. We would like to point out two of them here, and the first one involves small business succession planning.

If you are a partner in a small business you would logically want to leave your share to your family members. But if you do this, what will they do with it? If they sell it to anyone who happens to come along, your surviving partner or partners would be stuck with this individual or entity whether they liked it or not. Of course you would also be forced to accept this arrangement if you outlived a partner or partners.

This situation is commonly addressed by something called buy-sell agreements. One of these is the cross purchase plan, and this plan is implemented by each partner taking out an insurance policy on every other. When one of them dies, the insurance company proceeds are used to purchase the share that was owned by the deceased from his or her family.

Another way that life insurance can be used in estate planning that we would like to highlight is the balancing of inheritances. Suppose you are in fact a small business owner but you don’t have any partners. Let’s say you have two children, a daughter and a son, and your daughter has worked full-time in the business for many years. Your business represents the lion’s share of your assets. If you you leave the business to your daughter, your son would be largely left out in the cold. You can address this situation by taking out a life insurance policy on yourself that was valued at the approximate worth of the business, naming your son as the beneficiary.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The majority of Americans would tell you that they’re not chomping at the bit to pay taxes, but they are cognizant of the needs that exist so they don’t mind carrying their share of the load. The problem people have is when they feel as though they are being taxed unfairly, and this sentiment is often felt when the topic of the estate tax is discussed.

There are a number of reasons why people have a hard time embracing the estate tax, and one of them is the fact that it is an instance of taxing resources that have already been taxed. The assets that you have left over after you pass away are the remainder that you were able to retain after paying income and payroll or self-employment taxes on your earnings. There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason why your death should trigger an additional levy on these funds.

But in addition to this, even if you were to somehow accept that the estate tax was justified in principle, the way that it is imposed is inequitable. To illustrate, the heirs of someone who passed away in 2009 with an estate valued at $5 million would owe $675,000 in estate tax because the exclusion was $3.5 million and the rate of the tax was 45%.

This year, the estate tax exclusion is $5 million and the rate of the tax is 35%, and these parameters will remain in place through the end of next year. So if someone died with that same $5 million amount in 2011 or 2012 his or her family would not be exposed to any estate tax all.

But in 2013 the estate tax exclusion is going down to $1 million and the top rate is going up to 55%. So that same $5 million estate would be shaved down by almost $2 million in estate tax liability.

So you die one day, your heirs get all $5 million; but if you die the next day, they get $3 million and the government gets  almost$2 million. Something about this seems a bit odd.

There’s not much we can do about this as individuals. But what you can do is remain in contact with your estate planning attorney on an ongoing basis so that you can make the necessary estate plan adjustments as the goalposts are moved around.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Just about everyone is online at this point, and conducting business and socializing over the Internet has become a routine matter of course. Given this reality it is important to recognize the fact that you are going to have to make your estate administrator aware of your online accounts and leave instructions with regard to how you would like them to be handled.

There are of course financial accounts that would be part of this equation. Many people pay their bills online and paperless billing has become very common. Your creditors are going to have to be satisfied so your executor or administrator is going to need this information.

Of course there are bank accounts and brokerage accounts that many people manage online as well and this is another factor to consider.

In addition to the above social networks are a huge part of our lives. In fact, one in four Internet page views in the United States takes place on Facebook at the present time. If you were to pass away, what would become of your Facebook account?

One option for you would be to have your representative ask Facebook to memorialize your account. When this is done your personal information is deleted, your status updates no longer appear, you are no longer recommended as a friend, and you do not appear in searches conducted by people who are not Facebook friends at the time of your passing. However, existing friends and family members can post on your wall.

It is easy to overlook some of the details when you are planning your estate as a layperson. This is one of the reasons why professional advice is so valuable. If you would like to devise a plan with the assistance of an Internet savvy expert, take action right now to arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Hartford estate planning lawyer.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you start to develop an interest in planning for the future and you are like most people you will probably start do some research on the Internet. When you do you will invariably come across websites making the claim that estate planning is something that you can easily do by yourself. They will sell you a do-it-yourself estate planning kit and all you have to do is fill in the blanks and you’ll be good to go.

When you see these claims being made it is a good idea to take pause and apply some common sense to the equation. Estate planning involves preparing all the assets that you have been able to accumulate throughout your life for transfer to your loved ones. Doing this requires execution of legal documents, and they do not exist in a vacuum.

If you use a last will to transfer your assets, and most do-it-yourself estate planning kits would provide a generic will, it is going to have to pass through the process of probate. The probate courts are not identical in every jurisdiction and no one document can be crafted to meet the expectations of every probate court in the country precisely.

Any time you are involved in drafting legal documents you are doing so because you want them to be legally binding; that’s the whole point of putting something in writing. When you are talking about a matter as profound as your legacy, why would you even consider attempting to plan your estate without legal advice?

There are a lot of different things to consider when you’re planning for the future, and the layperson would have no reason to understand them all. Plus, the last will is not your only option as a vehicle of asset transfer and may not be the best one in many cases. To be sure that your estate plan is ironclad and truly reflective of your wishes, make preparations with the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are planning your estate you do indeed need to prepare your assets for eventual transfer to your loved ones after your death. And, you need to to do it without losing anything in the process, and this is something that is easier said than done in many cases.

This is why it is important to retain the services of an experienced estate planning attorney who understands the tactics that can be employed to preserve your wealth and enable your legacy to be passed to your heirs intact for the most part.

However, if you want to be comprehensively prepared there are some additional things to consider. One of these would be the preferred handling of your body after your death. If you don’t let your family members know your preferences a couple of challenges present themselves.

For one, they will be forced to run around trying to make final arrangements at a time when they will be grieving and in no mood for it. And there are also sensitive details to be addressed, and family members can sometimes disagree. This can make a very difficult and emotional situation that much worse for all involved.

So, you may want to be proactive and state your wishes in this regard when you are drawing up your estate planning documents.

Simon Cowell, the sharp-tongued Brit who was a judge on the popular American Idol television program, has recently stated his intentions and they are interesting indeed. He wants his body to be cryonically frozen in the hope that someday the technology will exist to bring him back to life.

When he discusses this objective with his estate planning attorney, there will surely be a lot to take into consideration. And one wonders if his ability to evaluate musical talent will be as profitable to him in 2323 as it is at present, but…time will tell.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Why should you retain the services of an estate planning attorney? There are multiple different valid answers to this question, but perhaps the most comprehensive one is the simple fact that an estate planning lawyer will make sure that you are comprehensively prepared and that nothing is left undone.

More specifically, there are many different approaches that you can take with regard to transferring assets, and the optimal course of action is going to be different from one family to the next. Your estate planning attorney will gain an understanding of your wishes, evaluate your assets, and craft a plan that is specifically devised for you and your family.

Though the possibilities are diverse, there are some musts when it comes to estate planning. Of course preparing assets for transfer is at the top of the list and everyone is aware of this. There are however many ways to go about it and this is where the expertise of your estate planning lawyer comes in.

In addition to financial matters there are some other things to take into consideration. One of these is the creation of a living will. With this document you state your preferences regarding medical procedures. Would you want to be kept alive via the use of feeding tubes or some other type of artificial life support if you were in a terminal condition? This is a sensitive question, and it is not something that should be left in the hands of anyone other than the individual involved. Since people who are in this situation generally cannot communicate in real-time, you can put your choices in writing through the execution of a living will.

The last estate plan component that we would like to highlight here involves making preparations for possible incapacity. It is important to execute durable powers of attorney naming representatives of your own choosing who would make medical and financial decisions for you should you become unable to make them for yourself. If you fail to do this interested parties could petition the court to appoint a guardian to act in your behalf and as a result you could spend the final years of your life as a ward of the state. Clearly, it is best to choose your own representatives in a legally binding manner to avoid this eventuality.

Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates, P.C. is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.