Life insurance serves a number of purposes in the estate planning realm, and it is most commonly utilized as a vehicle of income replacement.

Many younger adults fail to make preparations for the future because they feel as though this is something that only older people have to concern themselves with.  But in fact, the children of senior citizens are probably going to be self-supporting.  When you have dependent children estate planning is quite relevant, and making sure that you have adequate life insurance coverage is going to be part of the plan.

Most people are aware of the fact that life insurance often serves as a vehicle of income replacement, but it has other estate planning uses as well and one of them would be to balance inheritances.

Let’s say that you have a particular asset that comprise a significant percentage of the overall value of your estate, such as your house.  For the purposes of this example suppose you have two children to whom you would like to give equal inheritances.

The family home means a great deal to your daughter and you know that she would love to inherit the property.  Your son lives out-of-state and he already has his own dream home.  You could balance the inheritances by leaving the house to your daughter while making your son the beneficiary of an insurance policy that equals the value of the home.

Life insurance can be an important part of many estate plans. To gain a comprehensive understanding of its various uses, sit down and discuss the matter with a good Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Estate planning is something that you do for the benefit of those that you love, and there can be more to it than getting financial resources into their hands.  It is useful to sit back and envision what they will be facing when you do in fact pass away in an immediate sense.

When a loved one dies it is a shocking event even if you anticipated it because you can’t quite wrap your head around how you will feel even when you know that it is inevitable.  During a time like this you really don’t want to be charged with a lot of tasks, and the last thing that you want to is have to politic a particular position with your family members.

With the above in mind you may want to take action beforehand to assert your wishes with regard to your final arrangements.  There are a lot of decisions that must be made and they are best made by the individual in question.  Many people have specific preferences regarding things like cremation or burial and the exact nature of the memorial service or if they even want a memorial service at all.

If you don’t make your wishes known no one will know how you would have liked them to proceed. Should this be the scenario, people can wind up disagreeing and this makes a difficult situation that much worse.

Should you be interested in asserting your choices in writing while making financial provisions, simply take a moment to get in touch with an experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorney to arrange for an informative consultation.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Because of the high incidence of divorce in the United States at the present time there are a lot of blended families out there, and there are many different types of scenarios to address in an estate planning context.  We are going to take a look at a relatively common one here and offer a typically utilized solution.

To explain by way of example, let’s say that you married your childhood sweetheart and had three children along the way.  You accumulated assets as a couple and you both feel as though your children should benefit from these resources after you pass away.

This is all well and good and easily accomplished when you are married, but let’s say that you get divorced.  You both go your separate ways with your share of the community assets.  For the purposes of this example we will say that you get remarried at some point in time.

How do you provide for your new spouse after your death without giving this individual control over who inherits the assets that you leave behind after he or she dies?  One answer would lie in the creation of a qualified terminable interest property trust.

With the QTIP you allow for your spouse to benefit from the income that is earned by the trust throughout the rest of his or her life.  However, he or she can’t direct who will receive the trust’s assets after his or her death.  You name this beneficiary when you are creating the trust.

The qualified terminable interest property trust is one of the blended family solutions that are available to you.  To explore them in detail, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

There are a number of different factors to consider when you are engaged in inheritance planning, and one of them would be details specific to the people who comprise your inheritance list.

It is not always as simple as handing over a lump sum bequest directly, because for one thing there can be estate tax implications that must be addressed.  Some heirs may not be ready to handle a large sum of money, and for these individuals you may want to include stipulations, perhaps through the creation of an incentive trust.

Asset protection is something else you may want to take into account, and this can be especially important for people such as physicians who are especially vulnerable to lawsuits.  One course of action that you could choose to take in an effort to protect assets would be to create a generation-skipping trust.

As the name suggests, you skip a generation when you name a beneficiary, making your grandchildren the beneficiaries.  Your children can however benefit from assets that are placed in the trust, receiving distributions of income and utilizing property that is held in the trust.  Because they don’t legally own the resources in the trust they cannot be targeted by claimants against the children.

Generation-skipping trusts can be a very useful asset protection tool, and they provide tax advantages as well.  To explore this and other options you may want to take action right now and arrange for a consultation with a licensed, experienced, and savvy Indianapolis estate planning attorney.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

You may have heard the expression “the right tool for the right job,” and a lot of times what separates the professionals from the rest of us is the fact that they have the right tools at their disposal.

When it comes to estate planning there are different tools that are utilized under varying circumstances.  There can be more to it than simply drawing up a last will, and this is why it is advisable to work with an Indianapolis estate planning lawyer when you are contemplating your legacy.

One option that you may want to consider would be to utilize an RLT or revocable living trust as your primary vehicle of asset transfer rather than a last will.  The use of a revocable living trust enables probate avoidance, and probate carries some significant pitfalls with it.  For one thing, it is a public proceeding and privacy is important to many individuals.

Probate can also take a lot of time to run its course and bequests are not distributed until the estate has been closed by the probate court.  And perhaps most importantly, probate is quite expensive and probate costs can erode the value of your estate considerably.

A revocable living trust can also include an incapacity component that provides directions in the event of your incapacitation, and this is another part of the appeal.

If you are interested in exploring the possibility of creating a revocable living trust, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with an experienced and savvy Indianapolis estate planning attorney.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When you are engaged in inheritance planning you have to consider the impact that a large windfall will have on the recipients.  Perhaps you have some heirs on your inheritance list that are established in their own right, having demonstrated the ability to handle their own affairs effectively.  You may have no hesitation about leaving a lump sum to someone like this, but there could be other people who will be receiving inheritances that could use some guidance.

You have options available to you when you are planning your estate and you have the control.  It is possible to guide loved ones in fruitful directions, and one way of doing this would be through the creation of an incentive trust.

A lot of people may have concerns about spoiling a loved one, and incentive trusts can be a solution.  With an incentive trust you can include conditions that must be met before distributions will be paid out.

So you could for example require the beneficiary to earn money in his or her own right as a stipulation that must be satisfied before distributions are made.  Some people will direct the trust to match the earnings of the beneficiary.

You can also include age benchmarks, providing distributions or upping distributions when the beneficiary reaches a certain age.

As the grantor you know your family better than anyone and you can stipulate whatever you would like to. To learn more about incentive trusts, simply take action right now and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorney.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Now that we are living in the information age there is a lot of data right there at your fingertips, and this ready access to information makes it a lot easier to plan for the future.  With this in mind we would like to highlight a very good resource that is offered by the Social Security Administration in the form of the Social Security Retirement Planner.

A lot of people have questions about Social Security, and though it is not a good idea to rely too heavily on Social Security to finance your retirement it is going to make a significant difference to the majority of Americans.  This resource can provide you with all the information you need about Social Security.

Using the Social Security Retirement planner you can find out when you will become eligible, what your life expectancy is given the age that you are at the present time, and approximately how much you can expect to get when you become eligible to receive Social Security.

Understanding what you can expect from Social Security is important when you are making preparations for your golden years.  But the truth of the matter is that your Social Security benefit alone is not going to be enough to provide you with a comfortable retirement.

If you’re like most people you are going to have to plan ahead intelligently to be able to accumulate the financial resources that you need, and the best way of doing this is with the assistance of a licensed, experienced, and savvy Indianapolis retirement planning attorney.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Just about everyone is aware of what a simple last will is utilized for, and the execution of this document can be the right choice for some people who have a very uncomplicated estate. However, there are some other types of wills that are routinely used in estate planning as well and we would like to take a look at some of them here.

Living Wills

A living will does not have anything to do with the transfer of personal property.  This document is an advance health care directive, and it is utilized to express your wishes regarding medical procedures such as the use of artificial life support measures.  Different people have different opinions on the subject so it is important to make yours known in a legally binding manner.

Pour-Over Wills

A lot of people choose to utilize a revocable living trust as their primary vehicle of asset transfer. But at the same time, you may not have all of your property in the trust at the time of your death. Pour-over wills are used to direct assets into the trust after your death.

Ethical Wills

An ethical will is in a sense a kind of a parting letter to your loved ones.  Traditionally these documents share moral and spiritual values, but you’re free to pass along any information that you would like to should you choose to author an ethical will and make it a part of your estate plan.

Aside from these there are many other types of documents that are used in estate planning.  The combination that is right for you is probably going to be different than the combination that is optimal for the next person.  For this reason the only practical way to proceed is to devise your estate plan with the assistance of a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When famous people pass away you often hear about the way that they planned their estates, and some of the stories are quite positive.  For example, we lost the mercurial British songstress Amy Winehouse over the summer, and according to reports she had an ironclad estate plan in place.  Her parents and her brother were provided for while her former husband, who could have been in line for an inheritance had she failed to plan ahead, was excluded.

Other people of note were not as proactive, and Martin Luther King Jr. was one of them.  MLK died without executing any estate planning documents, and after his wife passed away in 2006 acrimony ensued among his children regarding the estate.  There were allegations of mismanagement of the King Estate Corporation, and a legal battle was waged.  It was however reportedly resolved a couple of years ago.

At the present time there is some fresh estate planning news circulating that involves the Martin Luther King Jr. estate.  It seems that a woman who acted as his secretary during the 1950s was given some documents by Dr. King.  They recently surfaced and were given to the son of this woman, who is now 86 years old.

The King heirs wants these papers, contending that the former secretary, Maude Williams Ballou, was never given these documents to keep as a gift.  They claim that she was in possession of them in a professional capacity.

When you hear about matters such as these you understand why estate planning is important. If you’re currently going through life unprepared, right now would be a good time to pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorney.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Buy-sell agreements are often used by partners in small businesses who are engaged in succession planning, and they can provide a solution to a rather challenging situation.

If you are a partner in a small business you may find that your share is your most significant financial asset.  But you probably don’t want to give this asset in its entirety to just one of your heirs.

So how do you make it liquid so that you can spread it to multiple family members without forcing them to sell it to the highest bidder?  Plus, if they were to sell it the remaining partner or partners would be forced to deal with the result of the sale without having any input and this is another thing to consider.

This is where buy-sell agreements come in.  With what is called the cross purchase plan the partners come together and decide on the value of the business shares.  Every partner takes out an insurance policy on each one of the other partners.  The combination of the policies will equal the agreed-upon value of a share in the business.

When one of the partners passes away, the surviving partners will receive the proceeds from the insurance policies.  According to the terms of the buy-sell agreement that they all entered into they will then pool this money and use it to purchase the business share that was owned by the deceased partner from his or her estate.

If you are interested in learning more about buy-sell agreements, pick up the phone right now and make an appointment to speak with an Indianapolis estate planning lawyer who has a background in small business succession planning.

Frank & Kraft, Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.