All kidding aside, pets are obviously valuable to people of all ages but owning a dog can be especially good for senior citizens.  It is not uncommon for elders to experience loneliness late in their lives, and the companionship that a dog can provide can really go a long way toward filling that gap.

In addition, dogs can provide protection.  Of course there are some breeds that are capable guard dogs, but even small dogs have keen senses and they can let you know if they hear something outside that doesn’t sound quite right.

If you do have a dog late in your life you are going to have to take the animal into consideration when you are planning your estate.  Finding a caretaker is going to be the first step, and once you identify someone to care for your dog you are going to have to provide this individual with the financial resources necessary to do so.

One option that is available to you would be the creation of a pet trust. If you would like to find out how to set up a trust for the benefit of your dog don’t hesitate to get in touch with an experienced Indianapolis estate planning lawyer to set up an informative consultation.

In an estate planning context the acronym CRUT stands for a charitable remainder unitrust.  These vehicles are utilized to provide individuals with tax efficiency while satisfying their philanthropic urges in the process.

With these vehicles you fund the trust and you name a beneficiary who will receive annuity payments from the trust on an annual basis at minimum. These payments must equal between 5% and 10% of the value of the trust. When you are creating the trust you set a term during which you will be receiving these payments, and this can be for the rest of your life if this is what you choose.

Most people are going to act as their own Trustee, but you must also select a charitable beneficiary.  This charity will assume ownership of the remainder that is left in the trust after its term expires.  This remainder must equal at least 10% of the contributions into the trust.

When you create the trust you are shifting assets out of your estate and reducing your estate tax exposure in the process.  You also may take a charitable deduction that is based on the IRS rules surrounding charitable remainder unitrusts.

To learn more about CRUTs and other tools that are utilized to deliver estate tax efficiency simply take a moment to set up an appointment to sit down and discuss things with a good Indianapolis estate planning attorney.

If you just go forward groping in the dark step-by-step you may find yourself in a difficult position later on in your life.  Along the way you may not be able to provide for your children in the manner that you would like to.

The decisions that you make today are going to impact your future, and if you make them without any particular long-term strategy in mind you may be on a road to nowhere.

The above is true for people who are employees of a company and it is also true for small business owners.  In addition to having a business plan that leads to profitability, you should also consider how you’re going to exit the business.

Some people intend to leave their business to the next generation of the family while others intend to sell the business.  Some businesses are driven by the specific talents of the owner and won’t really have much value when the owner passes away.  Exactly how you go about things along the way is going to depend on your unique situation and your personal intentions.

If you are tired of going through life without a plan, right now would be a good time to sit down and discuss your future with an experienced, savvy Indianapolis financial planning attorney.

When you use a revocable living trust you can enable the transfer of assets to your loved ones outside of the process of probate.  Probate is a legal process during which the probate court that is local to the deceased supervises the administration of the estate.  The actual hands-on tasks are performed by the executor or personal representative.

This legal process can be quite time-consuming, and the heirs to the estate do not receive their inheritances until the probate court has done its work.  There are also significant costs that are going to be incurred during the probate process and every penny spent is money that could have otherwise gone to the family of the deceased.

However, if you do use a trust you are still going to need to execute a particular type of will called a pour-over will.

You are probably going to have assets in your own personal possession when you die even if you do have a revocable living trust that contains the lion’s share of your resources.  The pour-over will is utilized to express your desire to direct these remaining assets into the trust after you pass away.

To learn more about trusts, wills, and other estate planning tools simply take a moment to arrange for an informative consultation with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis Estate Planning lawyer.

The term that is utilized to describe the condition of dying without a will or any other type of estate planning document directing the transfer of your assets is “intestacy.”

If you were to pass away intestate, the probate court would be charged with the responsibility of sorting out your final affairs.  The individual who would be in line to inherit your assets would be your spouse if you are married, and your children would be next in line if you are a parent who is not married.

The probate process can be long and arduous, and creditors and other interested parties could make claims against the estate.  There are also expenses that go along with probate and these costs can swallow up a significant portion of the resources that you leave behind.

If you die intestate, your family has to deal with this process without knowing exactly what your wishes would have been at a time when they will be grieving, and this can make a difficult situation that much worse.

Taking action to put an estate plan in place is a relatively simple step that is well worth the effort when you consider the alternatives.  If you’re ready to do the right thing for the sake of those that you love, pick up the phone right now and arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis Estate Planning lawyer.

Every year the MetLife Mature Market Institute provides detailed information about the current state of long-term care costs.  Since we are now in 2012, they have the 2011 figures and they have made them available to the public via their annual survey.

Industry experts have predicted that long-term care costs will continually rise into the foreseeable future, and these 2011 numbers compiled by MetLife would confirm their suspicions.

In 2010, the national average cost for a single day in a private room in a nursing home in the United States was $229. In 2011 that number went up by 4.4% to $239.  If you multiply that figure by the 365 days that are in a year, you find that the national average cost for a yearlong residence in a private room in a nursing home in the United States in 2011 was $87,235.

In Indiana the average daily cost for a private room in a nursing home was very close to the national average at $234.

A month in an assisted living community in the United States in 2011 came with a $3,477 average price tag, which is a 5.6% increase over the 2010 figure of $3,293.

It is important to note that most senior citizens will require long-term care eventually and the average length of stay is between two and four years.

Clearly, long-term care expenses are something to budget for when you are planning for the future, and the sooner you get started sticking to an intelligently conceived long-term financial plan the better.

People don’t usually pass away suddenly when they are in good health, although this does of course happen when individuals are involved in fatal accidents.  The natural process of aging brings certain realities along with it, and the different stages of life should be planned for in advance.

The suggestion here is to look at retirement planning and Estate Planning as components of a comprehensive plan for aging and eventual death.  For the retirement phase you have the active retirement years, and this is a period of time that a lot of people look forward to quite anxiously.

If you’re going to be able to retire and enjoy your free time to the utmost you need to plan ahead intelligently.  Social Security is really just a basic safety net so if you’re going to be comfortable you’re going to have to feather your own nest.

After your active retirement years you may go through a period of time when you need living assistance, and incapacity is a possibility as well.  These are contingencies that should be planned for in advance.

If you concur with the logic above, the wise course of action would be to sit down and discuss your future in its entirety with an experienced, savvy Indianapolis Elder Law attorney.

With it being a new year, you may want to consider an annual estate plan review.  As we all know, there are things that happen in our lives that can be directly relevant to the estate plan that we have in place.  One very common scenario that would fit this description would be a change in marital status.

If your financial situation changes considerably you may want to adjust your estate plan, and additions and subtractions to your family can call for estate plan updates as well.

The types of things mentioned above are going to be plainly evident to you.  But there are ongoing changes to relevant laws that can make estate plan adjustments necessary.  Changes to the estate tax parameters would be among them, and in fact we have a significant change scheduled at the end of 2012.

Because of the fact that 2012 is a transitional year for the estate tax, you would do well to work with a professional to assess your current plan in light of coming changes.  If you’re ready to take action, simply pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced Indianapolis Estate Planning lawyer.

An alternative that exists would be to seek Medicaid eligibility because Medicaid does in fact pay for long-term care.  Because of the fact that Medicaid is technically in existence as a safety net for people who have serious financial need there is an upper resource limit that you cannot exceed if you want to qualify for Medicaid.

This limit is just $2,000, so you may think that there is no way that you will qualify.  The reason why a lot of people can qualify who do in fact have some resources is because not everything that you own counts toward this number.  And, if you are married and you need long-term care and your spouse does not he or she can keep his or her half of the community resources up to a certain amount.

This amount has changed for the better now that we are in 2012.  The healthy spouse may retain $113,640 in countable assets this year as opposed to the $109,560 that held sway in 2011.

Becoming eligible for Medicaid can be a solution to a difficult dilemma.  If you would like to explore possible Medicaid eligibility strategies simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis elder law attorney.

The truth of the matter is that most Americans who stick to a consistent career path have a comfortable retirement within their grasps.  Yet, many people will never be able to retire because they did not take advance planning seriously.

Some of those old sayings are still around because they have never stopped being true.  One of them states something to the effect of “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  This is quite relevant as we discuss the negative fallout that goes along with a failure to plan ahead for your elder years.

Some people tell themselves that they will always have time to begin planning at some future point in time.  These individuals often find out just how fast time can pass you by.  It can take some focused effort over multiple decades to accumulate the resources they need to retire in comfort and if you keep procrastinating you’re not going to have enough time to get where you need to be.

In a very real sense the difference between those who are living their retirement dreams and those who are still laboring away while they are in their late 60s and 70s is a simple matter of planning.  If this make sense to you, the logical first step is to seize the day, put the procrastination behind you and arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis financial planning lawyer.