If you’re concerned that your estate may fall over the limit for the estate tax exemption, leading to significant decreases in the overall value of your estate due to tax responsibility, you may wish to explore multiple opportunities and strategies with the help of our Pasadena area lawyers.
One way to minimize the possibility of future estate taxes is to write checks for someone else’s education or medical expenses. The educational expenses can cover preschool through graduate school and do not impact your estate tax exemption or your annual exclusion amount, so long as the checks are written directly to the educational institution or the health care provider. There are many other ways you may wish to reduce the overall value of your estate, such as looking at all of the assets inside your probate estate and determining if they can be transferred in another way.
This opportunity is in addition to using tools such as making gifts every year, which can also decrease the value of your taxable estate. These gifts are made outright to your chosen beneficiary to enable them to use as they see fit, which, of course, can include medical or educational expenses if they wish. However, you might want to talk to an attorney about the best way to leverage all of these plans.
Communicating with a lawyer who is familiar with these opportunities will help you make the most informed and beneficial decision for you. Estate planning is a very personal process and one that often requires consideration and changes over the course of your life. As life events occur, such as getting married, divorced, the birth of a grandchild, or an adoption of a child, your estate planning attorney in California will help you now navigate these possibilities and more.
