Risks to Your Wealth and Prosperity

Prosperity is having sufficient assets to support your ability to live life for fulfillment and enrichment.
Here are some of the risks that can affect your trek to prosperity.
Spending
The most successful wealth managers know that they must be disciplined in their spending. It’s easy to let expenses increase as you make more and more money. If

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Estate Planning With A Charitable Lead Annuity Trust

Similar to a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT), a Charitable Lead Annuity Trust (CLAT) can pass most of their investment gains to heirs, while reducing or eliminating gift and estate taxes. But whereas a GRAT returns interest and principal to you, a charitable lead annuity trust, or CLAT, typically gives everything away. Annual income payments,

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Estate Planning With An Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust

A popular trust strategy, the sale of an asset to an Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust, or IDGT, can also be complex and expensive to set up. Why bother? For one thing, the payoff is potentially greater than with other strategies. Moreover, these give you a tax-advantaged way to pass assets to grandchildren while keeping the

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Helping Your Heirs With a Family Loan

One of the most attractive wealth-transfer strategies is also one of the simplest – a family loan.
The IRS permits relatives to lend money to one another at what is called the Applicable Federal Rate, which the government sets monthly. With these, relatives can charge far less than a bank.
The appeal of the Bank of Mom

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How to Create a Will for Distribution of Estate Assets

The will describes how you want your assets distributed after you die.
If you die without a will, the process of distributing your assets will take longer and it will be more expensive to administer the distribution. When you die without a will (called “intestate“), the distribution of all of your assets is done through a

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Living Revocable Trust for Estate Planning

In addition to a will you should consider having a living revocable trust.
The living revocable trust allows you to specify funded assets that can be passed directly to the beneficiaries that you appoint at the time of your death. The beneficiaries can then avoid probate court to take ownership of the assets

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Estate Planning Resources

Special Needs Trusts
Services
The Academy of Special Needs Planners is a professional group of lawyers who are knowledgeable about estate planning, government benefits and other disability-related concerns.
MassMutual SpecialCare is a program that provides financial products and information for special-needs families. Their agents get special training in disability planning.
MetLife MetDESK is Met Life’s Division of Estate

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Grantor-Retained Annuity Trusts

A grantor-retained annuity trust (GRAT) is a facility that allows the grantor to minimize or eliminate gift taxes on wealth transferred out of their estate during their lifetime.
Since the tax code sanctions GRATS there is virtually no risk of running afoul of the IRS.
In many ways, GRATs resemble loans. As with a loan, they mature

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Special Needs Trust

A “special needs” or “supplemental needs” trust is for households with a dependent with special needs.
A special needs trust will allow you to ensure that money is available to the special-needs person to improve the quality of their life. The money that they need for tactical expenses will be there. Importantly, the trust will not

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