The world of entertainment suffered a significant blow recently when the legendary singer Whitney Houston passed away at the young age of 48.

There have been precious few entertainers who have enjoyed the type of success that Houston was able to generate with her immense vocal talents.  She holds the industry record with seven consecutive number one singles and this is a mark that may be hard to beat.  Whitney Houston won no less than six Grammy awards, and she took home a pair of Emmy awards as well.

We can learn a lot about the do’s and don’ts of estate planning when we hear about the way that celebrities planned their estates.  There are many high profile cases where the rich and famous did not take the necessary steps to make their wishes known.  On the other hand, some people, such as the British singer Amy Winehouse, did in fact pass away with ironclad estate plans in place.

The details of the Whitney Houston estate have not been made public as of yet but it is believed that her 18-year-old daughter Bobbi will be inheriting her resources.  They are indeed considerable, and the value of her estate will increase dramatically as interest in her work is rekindled as people remember her greatness.

People do pass away before their time as this case will attest.  If you do not have an estate plan in place, even if you have not yet celebrated your 50th birthday, take action right now to arrange for a consultation with a licensed Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

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

You can look at estate planning in one of two different ways.  There are some people who go through life doing whatever they please without any particular objectives with regard to passing along a legacy.  They just execute a last will that splits up whatever they happen to have left over among their loved ones and let the chips fall as they may.

There is no absolute right or wrong regarding how you approach your estate and you can conduct your life in any way that you choose to of course.  However, in addition to the types of individuals described above there are others who have specific things that they would like to be able to do for their loved ones.

This could include providing significant inheritances to their children to make their lives easier, and many people will have specific intentions in mind with regard to taking care of their grandchildren.  Others would like to include a charitable giving component when they’re planning their estates in an effort to give something back to worthy causes.

If you do have specific objectives you have to consider these when you are acting in the present.  It can take some intelligent long-term planning to accumulate the resources that you need to satisfy all of your legacy goals.  And in addition to this, you must stick to the plan with discipline over an extended period of time.

The sooner you get started the better.  The intelligent first step is to take action to sit down and discuss your future with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

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

More and more people are conducting business online these days, and this is something to keep firmly in mind when you are planning your estate.  If you have bank accounts that you manage online and Internet-based brokerage accounts you are going to have to let your estate administrator know about them and provide the necessary access where appropriate.

There is also the matter of your creditors.  These days a lot of creditors encourage their customers to sign up for paperless billing options.  So you may have creditor accounts that have no paper trail at all.  This is another thing to take into consideration when you are passing along relevant information to the individual or entity that will be handling your final affairs.

On top of the financial aspects you may also have social network accounts such as a Facebook account.  This is another matter to address.  Facebook allows the family of a deceased account holder to request that this individual’s Facebook account be memorialized.

This entails disallowing future access, deleting personal information, and removing status updates. In addition, the deceased individual is no longer recommended as a friend and cannot be found in searches.  However, existing friends can still post on the wall of the deceased Facebook account holder.

There certainly are a lot of details to attend to when you are making final preparations.  The best way to make sure that you are leaving nothing undone is to work alongside a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning attorney when you are crafting your legacy.

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

They say that the two inevitable eventualities are death and taxes and this is certainly true.  But… should the event of your death be a taxable one?

A lot of people would say no, but there is in fact a federal estate tax in place that many people refer to as the “death tax.”

Let’s break it down.  Suppose you save as much as you can every month from the time you have a paper route as a kid until you become a senior citizen and you end up accumulating quite a nice nest egg.

All this money was put away after you paid income tax on your earnings.  For the record you paid all kinds of other taxes throughout your life as well, such as sales tax on every purchase, property tax, perhaps capital gains tax.  You also paid innumerable hidden taxes like gasoline tax, taxes on tobacco and alcohol, hospitality tax, etc.

So the savings that you have are the remainder that you were able to hang onto after paying all these taxes all of your life.  As long as you’re alive there is no reason for anyone to tax them yet again.

But when you pass away and the assets are being transferred to your loved ones, here comes the tax man ready to consume a huge percentage of the taxable portion of your estate.  It was the event of your death that triggered the tax.

The above does not seem logically supportable to many people, but the tax is a reality all the same. There are however steps that you can take to mitigate your estate tax liability.  If you would like to explore them, take action right now 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.

If you want to be comprehensively prepared for the future you have to be levelheaded and mature about accepting some of the challenges that go along with reaching an advanced age.

Nobody relishes the idea of becoming unable to make sound decisions.  But the cold hard truth is that upwards of 40% of people who reach the age of 85 suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.  As most people know Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia, and dementia can result in the inability to comprehend concepts and make logical decisions.

People who are deemed to be unable of handling their own affairs by the court can become wards of the state.  The court will appoint a guardian in these cases to make decisions in behalf of the incapacitated individual.

If you are like most people you would prefer to have your own handpicked decision-makers in place.  This can be done by executing documents called durable powers of attorney.  Because of the fact that these documents are indeed “durable” they remain in effect upon the incapacitation of the grantor.

You could execute a durable power of attorney for health care decisions and another DPOA for financial decision-making and name separate attorneys-in-fact if you feel as though different individuals would be best for each respective role.

Incapacity planning is an important part of any comprehensive estate plan.  If you have not yet executed these important documents right now would be a good time to arrange to do so 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.

Long-term care expenses are something to budget for when you are making preparations for the latter portion of your life.  Some people are under the impression that Medicare will cover all their health care needs once they reach the age of eligibility.  In fact, Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care expenses and statistics tell us that most people who reach the age of 65 will someday need living assistance.

With the above in mind it is useful to note that people who have served in the United States military during wartime may be eligible for a very valuable benefit that is often overlooked called the  Veterans Aid and Attendance special pension.

This benefit is intended for veterans who have some modicum of financial need.  As a result, there is an upper resource limit of $80,000.  However, valuable possessions such as your home, your vehicle, and some of the things that you own do not count toward this figure so you may in fact be able to qualify even if you are not completely without resources.

To meet the length of service requirement you must have served at least one day during a time of war out of a total of a minimum of 90 days of service.

As of this writing single veterans who qualify for the Veterans Aid and Attendance special pension may receive as much a $1,632 every month and this would certainly be a welcome boost to many veterans who need living assistance.

To learn more about long-term planning for military veterans, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis elder law attorney.

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

Indianapolis estate planning attorneys will always remind their clients that estate planning is an ongoing effort.  Things don’t stand still, and as time marches on events invariably take place that render your existing estate plan obsolete.  If you procrastinate about making the necessary adjustments you could be placing your family members at risk on one level or another.

With the above in mind you would do well to understand the fact that there are some estate tax parameter changes looming just over the horizon.  As of this writing the estate tax exclusion is $5,120,000 and the maximum rate of the tax is 35%.  So if your estate is worth less than this amount you are exempt from this rather harsh federal levy.

However, these guidelines are going to be replaced at the end of 2012 unless there are legislative changes between now and then that impact the estate tax parameters.  At the beginning of 2013 the estate tax exclusion is going down to $1 million and the top rate of the tax is set to rise to the 2001 level of 55%.

We are talking about a tax that will consume over half of the resources that you have that exceed $1 million.  This is no trifling matter, and it is something that you are going to want to address before these changes take place if your estate is worth more than $1 million.  To develop a plan of action, simply take a moment to pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

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

People sometimes pick up on ideas that circulate regarding estate planning without obtaining professional advice.  As a result they may take particular actions that are not going to serve the best interests of their families in the long run.

Legal assistance is essential when you are serious about making preparations for the future.  A little bit of information is a dangerous thing and when you proceed without the guidance of an Indianapolis estate planning attorney your family may wind up regretting your decision to go it alone.

With this in mind you would do well to think long and hard before depending on payable on death or transfer on death accounts to get assets into the hands of your loved ones after you pass away.

The way that these accounts work is that you name a beneficiary or beneficiaries who would assume ownership of the assets placed into the account after you pass away.  This would take place outside of the process of probate quickly and efficiently if all goes well so we are not saying that these accounts have absolutely no value.

However, there are some potential difficulties that you may want to consider before going this route.  For one thing, there is the issue of incapacitation.  The beneficiary does not have access to the resources when the primary account holder is still alive but incapacitated.

You also have to understand the rules of the institution that is housing the account with regard to multiple beneficiaries.  Sometimes you are not allowed to give different percentages to the beneficiaries based on your own wishes and this may present a problem.

Transfer on death accounts have severe limitations, and this is something to be aware of when you are considering ways to pass along assets to your loved ones.

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

They say that experience is the best teacher, and if you have been around the block a few times you are well aware of how true this can be.  However, in addition to the hard experiences that you have had directly you can sometimes learn from the experiences of others.  This is true when you look at the estate planning mishaps of some celebrities and other high profile individuals.

With the above in mind let’s look back to 2004 when the author Stieg Larsson passed away.  He obtained international fame for penning the crime novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a book that was subsequently made into a movie.  Larsson was quite successful financially and it was estimated that his estate was valued at no less than $40 million at the time of his death.

The author died at the relatively young age of 50 due to a heart attack.  Like a lot of people, he must have thought that he was still young so he had plenty of time to think about estate planning later on.  As a result, he passed away without leaving behind any estate planning documents.

He lived with the same woman for 32 years outside of wedlock and as you might imagine she staked a claim to his estate.  His closest relatives were his father and brother and they contended that his legacy was rightfully theirs.  The matter played itself out in court and ultimately Larsson’s girlfriend was the loser.

Situations like these underscore how important it is to assert your final wishes in writing, even if you feel as though death is a long way off.  If you are ready to take action for the protection of those that you love simply pick up the phone 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.

A lot of people like to roll up their sleeves and do things for themselves these days, and DIY projects can indeed be fun and rewarding.  The trick is to know where to draw the line because you could think you’re saving money by tackling a task when in fact in the long run it winds up costing you more than it saves.

This is definitely true when it comes to estate planning.  There are entities out there that will sell you generic legal documents.  They say that you can plan your own estate.  What they don’t tell you is that if you do, you may be making an egregious error.

Each family is different, and every person has a unique vision for the future. There is no one single estate plan or estate planning document that is right for everyone.  Depending on the dynamic of your family and the specifics of your circumstances any number of approaches may be optimal.

The above is something that is pretty evident to anyone who is sober minded about business and financial matters, but there are those who fall prey to offers that sound too good to be true.

The real truth is that executing legal documents is something that should be done with professional representation.  You don’t need a generic template document–what you do need is an estate plan that is tailor-made for you and your family.

If you’re ready to get serious about making preparations for the future well-being of those that you love, right now would be a good time to make an appointment to speak with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis estate planning lawyer.

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