Travels through Property Law by Tom Brodersen, Esq.
Why We Plan
Few of us feel like the assets we leave behind are enough to do everything we would wish for our loved ones. Looking forward, the vicissitudes of life in their future won’t be lesser, but rather greater than what we have had to cope with.
So why let taxes take any bigger a bite than need be? Tax avoidance by careful planning is legal and the only sensible thing to do for our heirs. Avoiding the discomfort and uncertainty of bureaucratic delay, expense and procedure seems like an important goal, which estate planning can accomplish.
There are also lifetime benefits to streamlining your wealth. Asset protection is one of them. Americans today seem more litigious than ever. Watching your assets go down like dominoes is a nightmare, but one that can be avoided.
Too many parents lose precious time wondering if their holdings will do little more than spark disagreement and disputes among their heirs. That is actually given as a primary motivator for much of the planning by parents of the choices they make in distributing their estates. It’s even the theme behind a currently popular television series these days.
Many people are concerned with the exorbitant cost of nursing care (at home or in nursing homes) as their health deteriorates. Medicaid Planning Trusts (also known as Home Protection Trusts) can protect your assets (and your plan to benefit your heirs) from being quickly dissipated by those costs, but only if implemented far enough in advance.
Of course, it is also true that, if you don’t adequately plan your estate and reflect those choices in your will or other documents, the state will substitute its judgement for your own in distributing your assets, under the rules of intestacy. That is a crude tool, indeed, that has little of the sensitivity or insight you would bring to making those choices.
Finally, as increasing age necessitates more and more involvement in the medical establishment, planning can facilitate communication and decision making in that context in very important ways. Designation of a health care surrogate can assure that someone who truly understands your wishes makes your decisions for you, when you are no longer able. Powers of Attorney accomplish the same thing with regard to your financial affairs. Also, anticipating the HIPPA rules can make sure that medical professionals will share information about what you are going through with appropriate family members.
Knowing that you have taken the time and done the work to plan your affairs takes an enormous weight off your shoulders, at a time when you need that comfort.
ANDERSON & BRODERSEN, P.A.,
350 Corey Avenue, St. Pete Beach, FL 33706
(727) 363-6100 • www.PropertyLawGroup.com