I'm pleased to announce that my latest book my ninth book, is out. Yours, Mine & Ours: Estate Planning for People in Blended or Stepfamilies (Paul Hood Services 2022) is the second book in my Planning Your Future series. As of now, I envision the series to grow to...
I noted the death of legendary former Florida State head football coach Bobby Bowden over the weekend at 91. I had an interaction with Bobby Bowden when I was LSU Homecoming Chairman back in 1981 that was funny but that eventually turned out to be even funnier some 16 years later during a chance meeting.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility of legislation affecting DAFs. In my opinion, significant reform is necessary and would be beneficial. For starters, I believe that the law should clearly favor local community foundations over the big box DAF sponsors like Fidelity Charitable for several reasons.
you’ll become a much better estate planner, your clients will get significantly better estate plans, fewer clients will resist signing the documents you suggest that they sign, and you’ll be a much more trusted and valued advisor.
Greetings! Welcome to my website, which is devoted to sharing information and resources about the benefits of purposeful estate planning. My passion is helping people determine the best estate plan that suits their needs and building that plan with a solid legal...
In this blog, after first defining what a defined value clause is and how it is intended to work, I will explore the possible impact of retroactive law changes on a defined value transaction that is final during the taxable year and entered into prior to actual enactment of a change in the tax law but on a date covered by retroactive effect.
I view a frank and honest keep-or-sell discussion involving the entire family concerning the family business as perhaps the most important conversation that too few families in business ever have. Why is that? I view such a discussion as a means of gauging the family...
What follows are the first two paragraphs of my ethical will:
I begin this document, which is my Ethical Will, with a sentence-In the Name of God, Amen-that was customarily used to begin all last wills and testaments before the practice ended a little more than a century ago. As an aside, at one time there was a legal difference between a will, which covered lands, and a testament, which covered personal property, but this distinction, which required people to have to execute two separate documents to transmit their belongings at death, was eliminated a few centuries ago when the two separate documents were combined under the name last will and testament, so now you know. But I digress, which is going to happen several times during my Ethical Will as it’s just a part of my personality, so you just as soon be ready for diversions.
You may find it odd that a lawyer who was trained to write wills and trusts would use the opening line from a historical last will and testament in his Ethical Will, which doesn’t transmit any property at all. First of all, I want to make it clear that this Ethical Will is not to be construed in any way to distribute any property that I could leave by will or any other mode of transfer. Moreover, my Ethical Will should not be construed as interpreting, amending, modifying or terminating any testamentary arrangements that I’ve made elsewhere to transmit property. However, with the legal warranty out of the way, that still doesn’t explain the reason for my use of the opening phrase.
I'm pleased to announce that my latest book, Buy-Sell Agreements: The Last Will & Testament for Your Business, is out!!! In this blog, I introduce you to the book and identify some helpful features that I built into and made a part of the book to make the task of...
In my opinion, a good estate planning result where property is properly transmitted as desired, and family relations among the survivors are not harmed during the estate planning and administration process. Notice that conspicuously absent from this definition is any mention of taxes. I humbly submit that taxes have always been the easiest piece of the estate planning puzzle to solve, yet the overwhelming majority of estate planners still focus their attention almost solely on the tax piece, probably because it is easiest to solve and also the easiest to demonstrate quantifiable, tangible results. This is not easy to do. Why is this so difficult to achieve?