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Estate Planning

Dec 07
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Do You Know What a QCD is? Should You?

By Estate Planning

Do you know what a QCD is? It’s a Qualified Charitable Distribution.

It is taking your Required Minimum Distribution from your IRA if you’re over 70 1/2 and having the money sent directly to a charity or charities of your choice.

When you do that, you don’t get taxed on that money coming out because it’s a charitable distribution. It does not increase your adjusted gross income like a regular IRA distribution would.

You have to be 70 1/2 and the money has to go directly from your IRA to the charity, so the custodian of your account has to send it via the instructions you make to the custodian on its form.

It’s a little complicated. You can’t go above your RMD for it. You need to use it for your RMD. The limit is $100,000 per person per year and it’s not per IRA. So, if you have multiple IRAs you could do some from different IRAs. Finally, it can only come from an IRA or an inherited IRA, not a 401K or a 403B.

Again, QCD, Qualified Charitable Distribution may come in handy this year now that there are higher amounts of standard deductions on taxes and it’s a little bit harder to itemize or less likely that people would itemize. If you make a QCD it will reduce your taxes even if you don’t itemize because it never counts as income in the first place.

Mike Garry, Yardley Wealth Management. We are a fiduciary, fee-only financial planning, and wealth management firm in Newtown, Pennsylvania. That’s in Bucks County. If you’d like to talk about this or anything else, please reach out: 267-573-1019, [email protected] or @michaeljgarry

Oct 08
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Should I use Software for my Estate Planning Needs?

By Estate Planning, Food for thought, Wills

Something that we’ve seen in the last couple of months that I’d like to point out, is that we’ve had three different set of married clients come in, having had done their prior Wills using software. They all used different packages, but they used software.

While it’s tempting to do that because the price tag is pretty cheap (I think they paid like fifty or seventy-five dollars each) and it’s tempting to do it in a pinch, I would be cautious. The software doesn’t know your entire situation within the context of the estate planning landscape and it doesn’t know the practical realities of the decisions you are making.

A lot of the decisions that clients need to make, it’s hard for clients to know what the repercussions are when they are going through the workflow of the software program.

I’m not bashing software, because we actually use software to create and draft our documents. We also have over 20 years of practical experience, so we know what will happen with the different choices clients make. We can talk to clients and guide them as they make some difficult decisions and let them know things that they’re not thinking about, the practical realities of administering their Wills or dealing with their advanced directives or any of the other documents. I’m not bashing software, but I’d be wary about using it for documents like these.

Sep 17
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Don’t Die Without a Will

By Estate Planning, Wills

The other night I was out, and I heard people talking about the fact that, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin died without a Will; and they thought that that meant that her money went to the state. It does not.

I think that the problem is that the term for it is really an unusual term. What happens if you die without a Will is that your stuff goes by intestate succession. So each state lays out its own rules for how your stuff would be divided if you died without a Will, and it typically goes to family members like spouses and children and parents.

It’s a little bit different in the different states, but it doesn’t go to the state. Even though it doesn’t, you should still have a Will, because what if you don’t want your spouse, your kids, or your parents or whoever to get your stuff?

You need to take the time to figure out and settle your affairs. You need to figure out what you want to happen and make it happen. Don’t be like the Queen of Soul and countless other celebrities, that didn’t plan; it’s really a shame.

Sep 07
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Fully Fund or Even Over Fund a #529 Plan Account?

By Estate Planning, Food for thought, Wills

If you have the means, and want to support your kids’ or grandkids’ educational efforts, I would consider funding or even overfunding 529s for them.

If you use a 529 plan, and you use the Pennsylvania plan, it escapes inheritance taxes and grows tax free if the money is used for education for as long as the money is in the plan. Now that means, you might want to consider funding it more fully than it might have been in the past or fully funding it if you can keep it in the plan for a long time.

It’s tricky with education because you don’t know how much they’re going to need because few pay the sticker price for private schools, and you don’t want to overfund it because it is stuck with education; but if you think about it, if you do have the means, and you have enough for your own retirement and are otherwise secure, if there’s more in the child’s plan then they need and there’s money left over, that money can stay in that plan and then you can change it to another beneficiary, like say their children, and grow tax free and compounding for a generation.

That can really have a nice snowball effect, it might even be able to keep up with the cost of college inflation! Anyway, it’s not something that a lot of people can think about or do, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about the past couple months and I think for some, it’s something to consider. Think about full funding your 529 fully or even putting in more than you necessarily need. Again, if your retirement is secure and you don’t otherwise need the money. You could get some great tax and investment gains out of that.

Aug 24
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You do Estate Planning for Your Loved Ones

By Estate Planning, Food for thought

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who lost his dad and we talked for a while, as I had known his dad and we shared some stories.

He then started talking about all the stuff he must go through to settle his dad’s estate and finish up his affairs. It really struck me then, more so than any other time, that you do your Estate Planning because it’s something you’re supposed to do sure, but you really do it for your loved ones, your heirs, the people who are going to be left behind putting your affairs in order and transferring them to your beneficiaries.

Keep that in mind when you update your Wills and other documents and when you update everything that you have for them, like the organization of all your stuff.

Make sure your heirs know where they can find your things, make sure they know where to find passwords or they know where everything is.

You don’t necessarily have to tell them everything, although that might be really helpful, but make a nice list and make it easy for them to find and tell them where to find it. It’ll make things much much easier, and they’ll be going through something that is very hard when you pass, and if you can make it a little bit easier and do this, then it’s a great service you can do for them.

Aug 13
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Ask an Elder Law Attorney – What can I do if my elderly parent is losing the ability to make decisions and manage his or her affairs?

By Elder Law, Estate Planning

Ask an Elder Law Attorney – What can I do if my elderly parent is losing the ability to make decisions and manage his or her affairs?

By Joellen Meckley, Esq.

Here are three things you should keep in mind:

  1. The best time to plan is now. Oftentimes, mental decline in old age does not happen suddenly, it happens gradually. The signs can begin to show in subtle ways, such a noticing your mother isn’t paying her bills or has bounced a check or noticing that your father’s personal hygiene has begun to decline. Don’t ignore those signs, because the best time to plan is when your parent is still relatively healthy and competent. Planning can always be done, but the longer you wait, options become more limited.

 

  1. These conversations are often difficult. Older adults are no different from the rest of us – some are more resistant to change than others and it can be difficult to raise this subject. If you as a child are worried that your relationship with your parent may be damaged by raising these issues, a subtle approach may work best. Consider relating what a friend is going through with her own elderly parents and use that as a spring board to raise the issue of how you’re worried about what to do if it ever happens to them. Many elderly parents don’t want their children to feel burdened and will be more motivated to address certain issues if they see the potential negative impact their problems could have on their adult child. If there are siblings involved, try to reach a consensus beforehand. A united front can be more effective.

 

  1. A range of options are available based on existing mental capacity.   Depending on how receptive the parent is, the first step is generally to meet with an elder law attorney who can lay out the options. Hopefully the parent still has some capacity in decision-making and can dictate what he or she wants. They can then be walked through the process of appointing financial and health care powers of attorney, which saves the process of going through court to have a legal guardian appointed. An elder law attorney also can lay out common techniques that can be employed or pitfalls to be avoided when managing the affairs of an aging parent, as well as putting you in contact with a wide range of support resources in the community who are available to help in such a situation such as geriatric care managers, home health agencies, and daily money managers.

 

Throughout the process, don’t forget that remaining as independent and autonomous as possible may be critical to your elderly parent’s long term well-being and happiness. Obviously, safety and independence must be balanced and decline often continues. However, taking the time to recognize their dignity and promoting independence whenever possible can go a long way in sustaining their quality of life into the future.