Are you prepared if disaster strikes? The most common response I hear when I ask if a person has finished his or her estate planning is, “I’m not worried, I have plenty of time.” People view estate planning as simply directing how their stuff is distributed. Estate planning, however, is more involved than that. Proper…
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Your Estate Plan – It’s Not Just About Your Assets, It’s About Your Legacy What’s most important to pass on to the next generation? A recent survey by Age Wave Consulting asked Americans aged 45 years and older this question. The results may surprise you in that the number one ranked answer was not “financial…
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Hospital Ordered to Pay $400,000 in Do-Not-Resuscitate Lawsuit I saw the following article in the Great Falls Tribune this past weekend, as reported by the Associated Press. The article, in its entirety, states: “A Montana hospital has been ordered to pay more than $400,000 in damages to the estate of a man after jurors found…
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Tanya is Retiring May 31st marks the last day for our longtime employee, Tanya Steil, who is retiring. She has been with the office for thirteen years, and has served as an able legal assistant with her primary role being client relations coordinator. Quite a run! Those of you who know Tanya will remember her…
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Coping with a Terminal Diagnosis: Getting Your Affairs in Order, Living Your Life A terminal illness diagnosis is always devastating, whether it’s you or a loved one receiving the sad news. It changes your priorities overnight, and initiates a flurry of activity as you work to get your affairs in order. It’s a profoundly emotional…
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All Natural Ways To Cope With Grief & Loss Unfortunately, loss is a part of life, and something that everyone will experience at some point — and usually more than once. Grief is a natural response to losing someone that is important to you. During the grief process, you may have feelings of loneliness, hopelessness,…
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Federal Estate Tax Portability This is a written summary of the availability of “portability” under the federal estate tax laws. “Portability” refers to the process of transferring a deceased spouse’s unused federal estate tax exclusion or exemption to the surviving spouse. This allows the surviving spouse to add the deceased spouse’s unused exclusion to their…
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The “Death” Tax that Applies to Gifts In the “old days” people made annual gifts to minimize taxes. Today, that’s probably going to increase taxes for most families. Lifetime gifting may be a good strategy to minimize estate tax, but it can have just the opposite result as to income tax. With the high estate…
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What are your options to pay for long-term care? There are several common approaches for dealing with future long-term care expenses: (1) do nothing; (2) assume Medicare or Medicaid will pay for it; or (3) Insurance or other benefits to offset the costs. For risk of being the bearer of bad news, the first two…
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A Checklist for Family of Immediate Tasks After the Death of a loved One (Originally posted May 16, 2014) With my mother’s recent passing and helping my siblings identify and deal with matters as they came up, I was reminded of the checklist that I posted about 5 years ago. Because it still has relevancy…
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