The general idea behind an irrevocable trust is that it cannot be changed or modified after it is created. However, even though this sounds like a fundamental rule, there are exceptions. It depends on how the trust was created and exactly what rules were laid out. In...
Whenever there is a financial transaction, the government steps in to impose taxes. Passing your estate on to your heirs is no exception. They can tax that estate at the federal level.That said, there are limits. For instance, in 2020, the bottom threshold for the...
There are a lot of people out there who use someone's death as an opportunity to illegally make money. Often, they do it by lying to and stealing from the deceased's surviving loved ones.These scams are often perpetrated with information the family published in an...
Estate planning fraud does not mean just creating a fake will after the fact and claiming it is the real thing. Instead, the person planning to commit fraud may do so by tricking that person and getting them to sign the document, thereby making it appear more official...
One of the best reasons to do estate planning is just to stave off family disputes before they begin. Without a plan, heirs will often argue over all manner of things.In some cases, they disagree on who should get specific assets. Two children may want the same...
Many Americans feel like their student loan debt is going to follow them to their grave. That's not an unrealistic fear. In 2018, people over 50 owed a cumulative $260 billon-plus in student loan debt. Just 14 years earlier, that figure had been $36 billion.So what...
When people think about a will that is not valid, they often think about a fake will. Maybe, after a parent's passing, an heir drafted a will that gave them a far greater share of the estate than they got in the original. There is a clear chance for financial...
You have $10,000 in credit card debt. If you pass away, does that debt simply go to your children? Are they obligated to pay?This is an important question to ask when doing your estate planning. The truth is that, in most cases, children do not need to pay for debts...
One reason people sometimes give for not doing their estate planning is that they don't think their estate is complex enough. Maybe they don't have multiple homes or properties. They don't have complex investment portfolios. They don't want to use trusts or give to...
Coping with the death of a loved one and the formal probate proceeding can be daunting. If the decedent's assets are not already transferring outside of probate, for example by jointly owned property, trust property, or property determined by beneficiary designation,...