Your Living Trust & Estate Plan: How to Maximize Your Family's Assets and Protect Your Loved Ones, Fifth Edition

by Harvey J. Platt

Overview

This revised fifth edition from estate-planning expert Harvey J. Platt details the most up-to-date strategies for using a living trust to create a flexible estate plan. Platt explains the latest tax laws, including the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the broadening of statutes for amending trusts, and the rule against perpetuities (RAP). Platt also addresses updates on many existing topics, including lifetime exemptions; the estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax; charitable deductions; state estate tax savings; and private annuities. 
Your Living Trust & Estate Plan maps out the most effective techniques for saving money and property and covers the essentials of successful estate planning. Other resources frequently overlook vital areas such as unlocking the benefits of living trusts, protecting beneficiaries, using life insurance, handling retirement benefits properly, and fixing inadequate estate planning postmortem, but Your Living Trust is the complete guide. This invaluable resource will teach you how to maximize your family’s assets, plan your estate, and provide for your loved ones well into the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621532620
Publisher:	Allworth
Publication date:	09/03/2013
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Harvey J. Platt is an attorney, a frequent lecturer on the subject of estate planning and living trusts, and the author of Your Will and Estate
Plan and Your Living Trust and Estate Plan (Allworth Press). His firm, Platt & Platt, has an extensive practice concentrating in the field of trusts and estates. Platt is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, co-chairperson of the New York State Association for Retarded Children Trust, and a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: What This Book Means and Why You Should Read It ix

1 The Development of an Estate Plan 1

2 Selecting Who Receives the Benefits of Your Estate 7

3 Wills 13

4 Understanding the Probate Process and the Administration of an Estate 27

5 Co-ownership of Property 37

6 Trusts 47

7 The Role of Trusts in Estate Planning 59

8 The Living Trust 71

9 Gifts 93

10 Charitable Contributions 107

11 Grits, Grats, and Gruts 113

12 Life Insurance 119

13 The Significance of Your Domicile 131

14 The Power of the Survivor 135

15 The Subsequent Marriage: Premarital and Postmarital Agreements 143

16 Planning for Minors 151

17 Estate Planning for Families with Children Who Have Special Needs 157

18 Persons with the Risk of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) 179

19 Surrogate Planning for the Senior Citizen 187

20 Retirement Benefits 195

21 Medicare and Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income 209

22 The Protection of Assets 223

23 Family Limited Partnerships and the Limited Liability Company 233

24 Estate Planning for the Business Owner 247

25 Estate Planning for the Surviving Spouse 259

26 The Cutting Edge: Value-Reduction Strategy in Discount Planning 267

27 Overview of the U.S. Estate and Gift Taxes as Applied to Nonresidents Not Citizens 279

28 Generation-Skipping Tax 285

29 The New Estate Tax Relief Act 293

Appendixes

I Net Worth Worksheet 315

II Glossary of Terms 317

Index 326