Wealth Protection for Personal or Business
Personal
- Estate Planning - Your family or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? Without proper estate planning, the IRS is likely to receive more of your estate than your family! The 2002 tax act purports to do away with estate taxes after the year 2010, ONLY if congress prevents the "sunset provisions" from taking effect. These provisions will revert the 2002 tax act back to the current law unless Congress votes to reenact the 2002 Tax Act provisions. The key to successful estate preservation is planning!
- Asset & Lawsuit Protection - Protect your valuable income and personal assets from the judgments of potential creditors, especially if you are a property owner. The time to undergo this type of planning is BEFORE you have an identifiable potential creditor or lawsuit.
- Long Term Care - A devastating wealth depleting event for a retiree and, potentially, the children of the retiree, is the admission of a parent to a long term care nursing facility. Long term care costs are rising nationally at about twice the current level of annual inflation! Our planning strategies will legally conserve family retirement assets so that an outside party will pay these costs.
- Disability or Death of Spouse - The death of a spouse generally eliminates income stream. This saddles the surviving spouse with all of the existing living expenses as well as additional costs associated with the loss of the deceased spouse's personal contributions. Disability of a spouse is even worse than death because of additional expenses arising to support the disabled person.
- Life Insurance Review - Often insurance is bought without any formal needs analysis. This can be costly if unnecessary insurance has been purchased or if your family's income needs have not been met through an inadequate purchase of insurance. We can provide you with a detailed needs analysis and review of your current policies for proper insurance type and amount.
Business
- Business Continuity - Estate taxes are due nine months after the death of a shareholder. Depending upon what percentage of the shareholder's estate the business value represents, up to half of the business value may be due in estate taxes. Generally, the business must be sold and does not transfer to the next generation. Proper planning, including estimates of estate taxes, must be employed if the business is to remain an ongoing entity after the death of a major shareholder.
- Asset & Lawsuit Protection - Businesses generally attract considerable potential liability. This is true whether the business is a product or service activity. Strategically restructuring company assets can insulate them from potential creditors and safeguard the business owner's primary source of wealth - his/her business shareholder.
- Key Employee Losses - Take away the company's assets and you might survive the losses to continue in business. But remove the key employees and the company is likely doomed. Every company must initiate programs to attract and retain valuable employees and prevent serious losses to income and profitability in the event of death or disability. Likewise, the key employee's family faces serious financial difficulty in the event the shareholder dies or becomes disabled unless the company has made provision to convey, to the family, the value of that shareholder's stock.
