FAQs on Estate Planning in New York

An estate plan can minimize taxes and expenses and help your loved ones avoid legal hassles. Plus, an estate plan may be designed to prevent your assets from becoming public, which can protect your family’s privacy.

The goals of estate planning traditionally have been to provide for the orderly transfer of wealth to younger family members in accordance with the wishes of older family members; to avoid unnecessary transfer taxes, including gift taxes, estate taxes, and generation- skipping transfer taxes; to reduce income taxes; and to minimize administration expenses. A number of techniques are available to accomplish these goals.

An estate plan can minimize taxes and expenses and help your loved ones avoid legal hassles. Plus, an estate plan may be designed to prevent your assets from becoming public, which can protect your family’s privacy.

As mentioned above, estate planning is not just for the wealthy – it’s an important part of financial planning that anyone with assets or dependents should consider. For one thing, many people simply aren’t aware of how much they will leave behind when they die.

An estate exists whether you plan for one or not. However, you can structure your estate by writing a will, which dictates who gets your assets and how. A trust has to be specifically created.

Estate planning: 6 big mistakes you might be making:

• Financial procrastination.
• Outdated wills and forms.
• Uncoordinated beneficiaries.
• Failure to title a trust.
• Triggering the estate tax with life insurance.
• Making children joint owners of your assets.

The biggest mistake people have when it comes to doing wills or estate plans is their failure to update those documents. There are certain life events that require the documents to be updated, such as marriage, divorce, births of children.