San Diego Estate Planning Blog: Creating Legacies

From the Desk of Del Mar/Carmel Valley, California Trust and Estate Attorney, Kristina R. Haymes

Estate Planning for San Diego Families

Congratulations! You just got married… Or had your first child… Maybe started your own business…

Being a responsible person, you know that any of these major life changes means that you need a will and possibly other estate planning documents to make sure that your loved ones are taken care of if something happens to you.

So you go online and find one of the “do it yourself, only as you need it” legal document sites. Or maybe your cousin just passed the bar and you get him to do a quick will for you at a really cheap price. You don’t need anything complicated.

Now…fast forward 5 or 10 years.

You die unexpectedly and you haven’t kept any of your estate planning documents up to date because you thought, hey, I have a will. What else do I need to do?

If you haven’t kept it up to date, chances are really good that “bargain” will isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. And here’s why. More… »

From the Desk of Kristina R. Haymes, San Diego Trust and Estate Attorney

August 16, 2010

Virtually everyone knows about the estate tax (unless they’ve been living under a rock for the last ten or twelve years).  But if you’re planning to leave property directly to your grandchildren or even great grandchildren, there’s another tax you need to plan for now.  

A tax that can be just as costly as the estate tax…

The Generation Skipping Transfer Tax.

The Generation Skipping Transfer Tax (GST) is a tax on property passed directly from a grandparent to a grandchild or great grandchild by way of a will or a trust.  The GST even applies to property passed on to individuals not related to you if they are more than 37.5 years younger.  While currently repealed, like the estate tax, the GST will be resurrected in 2011. 

Congress designed the GST to close a loophole in the estate tax.  Parents were leaving their estates to their children and the children paid estate tax on the inheritance.  Then, those children would subsequently pass their estates on to the grandchildren, incurring estate taxes a second time.  Eventually someone figured out that by leaving the estates to the grandchildren directly, they could avoid paying one set of estate taxes.  Congress passed the GST to tax transfers to related individuals more than one generation away and to unrelated individuals more than 37.5 years younger to eliminate the ability to skip paying taxes on the inheritance of one generation.

How much will the GST cost your heirs?  More… »

From the Desk of San Diego Trust and Estate Lawyer, Kristina R. Haymes 

Picture this scenario…

You’ve worked hard, saved and managed to accumulate some wealth.

You’re not a robber baron by any means but you’re comfortable.  Your siblings haven’t fared as well and you want to make sure that their children have the benefit of a solid higher education.  With no children of your own, it seems the right thing to do. 

 So you set up 529 college education savings plans for your nieces and nephews, make them the beneficiaries, and mention everything in your will. 

And life goes on…

You don’t give it another thought beyond making regular contributions. You move to another state.  You divorce. 

All things that happen in the normal course of living. 

You know you need to change the beneficiary of your estate and name another executor (both are still your former spouse) but you never really get around to it.

And then the unthinkable happens. You die unexpectedly, with no time to make those changes you sincerely intended to make. More… »