Estate Planning

When it comes to pursuing the American Dream most of us try as hard as we can to accumulate wealth. We do this so that we can enjoy a comfortable income and retire with dignity. However, what if you were actually wealthy in retirement and at the same time looked poor on your income tax return? How would that impact your retirement years?

Tax Planning is always important to do but even more important now. It generally made sense to defer taxes to future years, but that may not be the case as it appears future taxes could be going up.

2010 Is a Big Sunset Year On-Tax Provisions
Several tax benefits will be going away. For instance, the top tax bracket will be going up from 35% to 39.6%, some talk of it going up to 45%. The minimum tax bracket will go from 10% to 15%. All of us will want to stay abreast of tax legislation. Because of the coming sunset on provisions,

You need estate planning. It doesn’t matter how much you make. It doesn’t matter where you work. What matters is whether you want to decide where your assets – no matter how great or small – end up after you die. Or would you rather have someone else make those decisions?

From a technical perspective, not much.

Steven Covey penned a phrase that has impacted practically every facet of American society that does any planning at all. He said, “Begin with the end in mind.” Most people see that as sound advice and many, at some level, attempt to apply it.

If you have an annuity contract of any kind, you may have been approached about the idea of exchanging it for a new model or one with the latest features. A 1035 exchange could help you to achieve these objectives. 1035 refers to a provision in the federal tax code (“Code”) that allows you to transfer the accumulated funds in an existing annuity to another annuity without creating a tax able event.

Getting the most value from any annuity arrangement begins with an understanding of the relevant income tax rules. This helps us to understand how much income taxes will be taken from our annuity payments during retirement. This article will discuss some important tax rules you need to be aware of with respect to annuities.

I am sure that many of you out there are aware that the average private pay cost of a nursing home is well over $6,000 per month. It is therefore very important that we understand the various strategies that the law provides in order to qualify for Medicaid so that the State of Illinois would pay for a senior’s nursing home costs.

Medicare is NOT Medicaid

Probate can be time consuming – on average between 4 to 9 months, even for ‘routine’ estates. As well, going through probate costs money. Your estate will be required to pay attorney's fees, appraiser's fees, court costs for filing papers, and bonding fees for the executor. The total expense can add up to 5% of the value of the estate.

Here’s the issue: