Friday, July 15, 2011

Recent Press Coverage of Estate Planning (July 15, 2011)

Saabira Chaudhuri of the Wall Street Journal wrote two articles about the importance of keeping your heirs aware of key documents, and where the documents can be found. Chaudhuri points out that some insurance companies are failing to pay out life insurance policies because the company may not be obligated to determine if a policyholder is alive, they simply pay a claim when beneficiaries come forward. The articles lists 25 key documents that your heirs should be able to find quickly after you die, and a follow-up article lists several more. See The 25 Documents You Need Before You Die (July 2, 2011) and Read This Before You Die (July 7, 2011).

Caren Chesler of Private Wealth reports that wealthy Americans are leaving more of their wealth to charities and less to their children. Reasons for the trend, according to a survey by U.S. Trust, include that parents believe their children won’t be able to handle an inheritance, that their children will become lazy, that their children will make poor decisions, and that their children would be taken advantage of by outsiders. See Tough Love (July 2011).

Arden Dale of the Wall Street Journal points out that some states are repealing state estate taxes, some are hiking state estate taxes, and some states don’t have an estate tax. It leads to a lot of confusion, particularly for families that have residences in more than one state. See State Estate Tax Changes Make Plans Trickier (July 8, 2011).

Carolyn T. Geer of the Wall Street Journal stresses the importance of properly filling out beneficiary designation forms and discusses what types of financial accounts usually have beneficiary designations, who can be named as a beneficiary, and who should not be named as a beneficiary, among other issues. See Beware the Beneficiary Form (July 6, 2011).