Planning for your family's future made easy! If you’re like most people, you want to be sure that, once you’ve passed on, no more of your property and money will be lost to the government than is absolutely necessary. You want to know that you’ll be leaving your heirs your assets and not your debts. You want to be absolutely certain that your will is ship-shape, your insurance policies are structured properly, and that every conceivable hole in your estate plan has been filled. And most of all, you’d like to do all of this without driving yourself crazy trying to make sense of the complicated jargon, jumble of paperwork, and welter of state and federal laws involved in the estate planning process. Written by two estate planning pros, this simple, easy-to-use guide takes the pain out of planning for your ultimate financial future. In plain English, the authors walk you step-by-step through everything you need to know to: Put your estate into order Minimize estate taxes Write a proper will Deal with probate Set up trusts Make sure your insurance policies are structured properly Plan for special situations, like becoming incompetent and pet care Craft a solid estate plan and keep it up-to-date Don’t leave the final disposition of your estate up to chance and the whims of bureaucrats. Estate Planning For Dummies gives you the complete lowdown on: Figuring out what you're really worth Mastering the basics of wills and probate Using will substitutes and dodging probate taxes Setting up protective trusts, charitable trusts, living trusts and more Making sense of state and federal inheritance taxes Avoiding the generation skipping transfer tax Minimizing all your estate-related taxes Estate planning for family businesses Creating a comprehensive estate plan Straightforward, reader-friendly, easy-to-use, Estate Planning For Dummies is the ultimate guide to planning your family’s future.

Updated through August 1, 2020, the third edition of Pennell's Estate Planning and Drafting focuses on every-day planning for "middle-rich" clients. For example: Traditional planning for couples who may not have as much wealth as double the basic exclusion amount but who anticipate that the exclusion amount may decline in the future. They must consider whether to qualify 100% of the estate of the first to die for the marital deduction (and defer all taxes), or instead to shelter the unified credit of the first to die in a nonmarital trust. In either case they also need to decide whether to elect portability for any unused exclusion amount. A sharper focus on family trust planning for clients with enough wealth to worry about protecting their beneficiaries (and wealth) but for whom sophisticated tax-minimization techniques are not needed. A new brief explanation of Code Chapter 14 illustrates its application but notes that most middle-rich clients will not stumble into estate freezing techniques. The coverage of retirement benefits is updated to reflect the SECURE Act changes to the required-minimum-distribution rules, and elimination of most stretch-payout planning. The chapter on charitable giving is streamlined and simplified in recognition that most middle-rich clients do not make extensive use of private foundations or split-interest trusts. Information about postmortem planning and fiduciary administration stresses state and federal income taxation and state death taxation in situations that do not trigger federal wealth transfer taxation. The text explains essential tax fundamentals that inform traditional techniques (e.g. Crummey powers), without overemphasis on the tax-oriented practices that led to their original adoption. There are over 100 pages of annotated forms illustrating basic planning documents, including a pour over will, self-trusteed declaration of trust, irrevocable life insurance trust, family and marital deduction trusts, and a third-party special needs trust.

Written specifically for those in the state of Maryland (or studying Maryland estate planning), The Fundamentals of Estate Planning provides a unique opportunity to bring the practical aspect of estate planning into the classroom. The casebook provides text, relevant Maryland and Federal Statutes, forms and checklists used to interview and draft estate planning documents. Major topics include drafting of wills, testamentary trusts, inter vivos trusts, powers of attorney and advance medical directives for tax sensitive and non-tax sensitive client scenarios. Additionally, the casebook provides an overview of the ancillary issues including elder law, Medicaid, guardianship, estate administration and will caveats. The book is accompanied by a CD which contains sample forms.