Estate Planning

Some residents of New Jersey may feel that estate planning is not necessary because they do not have complicated finances or all of their assets are held jointly with their spouse. However, estate planning only needs to be as complicated as someone's finances are, so...

As our regular readers know, Congress made some permanent changes as part of its "fiscal cliff" remedy that have given estate planners more certainty than they've had in years. The permanent changes, it so happens, are quite favorable from an estate tax and gift tax...

In our last post, we began speaking about a new form developed by the state of New Jersey and the New Jersey Hospital Association that allows patients to avoid the situation where their family doesn't know their goals and wishes for end-of-life care. The form, we...

Last Friday, the New Jersey Hospital Association and the state of New Jersey released a new form known as Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment. The form enables terminal patients to decide, together with their families, the type of end-of-life treatment...

According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease. The disease, which affects one in eight older Americans, can eventually make it impossible for sufferers to manage their finances, but even milder cognitive impairments can...

Often, some of the trickiest estate planning conundrums come from people who have many assets and a large, complex family. These people often find that they need to carefully utilize several different estate planning tools in order to ensure that their assets are...

Contrary to popular belief, disinheriting someone-- that is, removing them from a will-- is not necessarily an act of betrayal or hatred. In fact, disinheriting relatives is surprisingly common, and it happens for a number of reasons. Some New Jersey parents, for...

A 25-year-old participating in last week's ESPN's X-Games suffered fatal injuries in a sustained crash while attempting a trick by snowmobile. The crash and the severity of the complications that arose from it highlight the extreme dangers that young people are often...

In our previous post, we began to discuss the topic of leaving wealth to children. Specifically, we were speaking about people who took last minutes steps in 2012 to make gifts to children to take advantage of the high estate tax exemption, which has now become...

Wealth transfer to younger generations has always been a significant concern for some wealthy families. How to leave money to the next generation without ruining their desire to work and be productive has always been a bit tricky. The new estate tax rules established...