#10. Under your existing estate planning documents, who will be charge of your financial affairs if you become ill? Who did you name as your successor trustee and as your attorneys-in-fact under your durable general power of attorney? Has your opinion changed since the time that your trust and power of attorney were signed?
#9. Under your existing advance health care directive, who will be your health care advocate if you become unable to give informed consent to medical decisions? Who did you name as the alternates? Has your opinion changed since the time that your advance health care directive was signed? Did your document state your wishes about “heroic measures,” home health care, organ donation, burial/cremation, and who will be in charge of your memorial service/funeral?
#8. Are your “after income tax” (or “income tax deferred”) assets titled to your living trust? Do you have assets titled in joint tenancy that really should be held in your living trust? Are your assets titled correctly for tax purposes and for avoiding probate?
#7. Do the primary and secondary beneficiary designations of your IRAs, SEP/IRAs, 401(k), 403(b), pension plans, and other income tax deferred assets correctly state who is to inherit those “pre-income tax” assets? Or are these beneficiary designations out of date?
#6. Under your existing living trust and will, who will inherit your estate? How, when, and what will your beneficiaries inherit? Have your inheritance wishes changed since the time that your living trust and will were signed?
#5. Have the life circumstances of your beneficiaries changed dramatically from the time that your estate documents were signed? Since the date that your estate documents were signed, have you changed your opinion as to what is best for your beneficiaries? For example, since the date that your living trust and will were signed:
- has a beneficiary’s financial responsibility or trustworthiness changed?
- has a beneficiary’s health become a concern to you?
- is a beneficiary now on Medi-Cal or other important government benefits?
- is a beneficiary’s marriage now of concern to you?
- have hostilities or conflicts developed involving a beneficiary that warrant changes to your trust and will?
- if you have minor children, is your designed guardian for them still correct?
#4. What is your plan for payment of your future home health care or long term care, if needed? If you want your estate to have the option to have California pay for your skilled nursing care under the Medi-Cal program, then your durable general power of attorney should be reviewed and updated if it does not include so-called “Medi-Cal planning power” in it. Should there be changes to your assets to make yourself more “self-insured” for home health care or long term care? Should you consider long term care and home health care insurance?
#3. Does the current assessed value (not fair market value) on your California property tax bill of all of your California real property exceed $1,000,000? If so, then your estate plan should be reviewed to avoid a possible increase in real property taxes on your death (as there is a limit on how much real property can be inherited by your children without triggering an increase in property taxes).
#2. Has your health or financial or family situation or your wishes changed significantly from the time that your estate documents were signed? If so, review your estate documents to make sure that they will still accurately reflect your wishes.
#1 MOST IMPORTANT REASON TO REVIEW YOUR ESTATE PLAN is to improve and simplify your estate plan due to new estate tax laws. Washington recently replaced the uncertainty of the Bush era estate tax laws with generous estate tax laws, gift tax laws, and generation skipping transfer tax laws. You can still leave an unlimited inheritance to your surviving spouse (who is a U.S. citizen). But the amount that you can now leave without estate tax to others has increased to $5,450,000 for persons dying in 2016 (indexed to increase with inflation after 2016).
For a surviving spouse, there is now a planning option to increase his/her $5,450,000 estate tax exemption by the estate tax exemption of the deceased spouse. For example, with proper planning, it is possible for a widow who inherits everything from her husband to inherit (via what is called “portability”) her husband’s estate tax exemption, leaving her with an estate tax exemption of $10,900,000 (so long as she does not remarry and so long as she files the required federal estate tax return IRS form 706).
Hence, married couples whose living trust was written before 2012 may have trust provisions that are far more complicated than needed now under current estate tax laws. Note that the estate tax exemption used to be $600,000 in 1997, $675,000 in 2001, $1,500,000 in 2005, and $3,500,000 in 2009. These lower estate tax free amounts often lead to complicated bypass trust type living trusts in order to save estate taxes. For many couples, those bypass trusts may no longer be needed (unless they are used for “control” purposes or to save property taxes).
The amount that you can leave without federal gift tax now equals the same estate tax exemption amount, including the so-called “portability” rules applying to a surviving spouse. The current annual gift tax exemption is $14,000. The amount that you can leave without generation skipping transfer tax is also $5,450,000 in 2016, but without the “portability” benefits for a surviving spouse.
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