Life Insurance
Whole Life
Limited Pay
Endowment
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Pre-need
Educational
Pension
Funds
Memorial Plans
Mutual Funds
Peso Bond
Fund
Balanced Fund
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Dollar Bond
Fund
Banking
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Auto Loan
Non-Life
Auto Insurance
Fire Insurance
Marine Insurance
Travel Insurance
Health Care |
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The Power of Estate Planning
by: Author |
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A vast
majority of individuals believe that their main objective in life is
to accumulate as much wealth as they could. Though it may be true
that this world revolves on money, many financially successful
people are still eluded of the maximum utility and true satisfaction
from what they have accrued.
At an individual’s death, estate transfer costs, funeral and
administrative expenses, and debts and all types of taxes would get
in the picture. At a person’s disability, there may be a loss of
income compounded with an immense financial exhaustion caused by the
illness itself, making the situation a “living death” to the
individual. With this regard, wealth may fail to achieve the most
important goals and needs due to the absence of superior financial
planning and inadequacy of proper management of currently owned
assets.
Estate planning is the accretion, protection, and allocation of
wealth in an efficient and effective manner which would fit into an
individual’s goals where tax minimization tools and techniques are
employed to bequeath the greatest possible financial security for an
individual and his beneficiaries.
Default estate planning would mean the inaction of an individual to
dictate on his estate (intestacy), as a result, the government would
start to intervene and declare who the individual’s heirs would be,
how and when they would receive their inheritance. Controlled estate
planning on the other hand, would be the total control of an
individual over his estate, with the aid of professional financial
advisors he retains.
Financial advisors’ or planners’ first and foremost consideration
would be to visualize the financial and psychological requirements
of those people and organizations an individual loves or feels an
obligation towards. Planning for the provision of an adequate
financial security and designing a plan which would give emotional
assurance that loved ones would be able to continue their way of
life would be the main components of estate planning. Generally, the
major estate planning problems an individual and his financial
advisor should consider addressing would be: |
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- the insufficiency of cash;
- the improper disposition of
assets;
- inadequate income or capital for
retirement, death, or disability;
- destabilization of asset values;
- excessive taxes and transfer
costs; and,
- other special management needs.
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| It must
always be put in mind that money saved and income provided by a well
thought out tax savings device even if it’s only putting the right
title on a bank savings account will have the greatest significance,
where potential tax threatens to wipe out a proportionately larger
part of an individual’s assets. A great deal of what estate planning
is designed to do is to give people peace of mind. |
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