Estate Planning: Estate Planning can be something as simple as putting beneficiaries on all your assets. By doing this you will avoid probate court upon your death. Probate gets involved when there is no succession of ownership of an asset when the owner dies. So all your CD’s, mutual funds, IRA’s, Life Insurance, annuities, house(s) or pretty much anything and everything should have some type of beneficiary attached. A lawyer can help with advising you on your estate with beneficiaries on real estate and businesses etc.. The above mentioned, believe it or not, is the easy part. Where things get complicated is if you have a larger estate. That requires planning while you are alive. We can set up a plan (with help from an estate attorney) to have more of your estate go to your children or charities. Many people have no idea what potentially could happen to their estate at their death. We can run some simple numbers to get an idea of what will happen, but planning can provide significantly more money to your children. Of all the people I talk to not many want the government to receive an ADDITIONAL tax on their estate after death. In most cases the estate tax can be very large depending on your asset size. I have cases where parents are wealthy and they got there by watching their pennies and are strict on expenses. These same people do not want to (or hesitate) to spend money on advice to plan for estate taxes. Little do they know that all their penny pinching is small compared to the six-figure estate tax bill the kids will have to pay. Seems a little backwards. Would you spend a little money now to plan and save thousands later?? I think that question is easy to answer. Again, many people have no idea if they have an estate tax problem. If you call me I can help out with this and we can see if some planning has to be done. Call me directly in Grandville at 538-2551.