Creating Your Life Plan
Estate Planning is a life plan that benefits you and your family. An estate plan safeguards your wishes for assets. What type of estate plan do you need? What fits your family? Attorney Sheri Tucker Founder of Tucker Legal Services, LLC will meet with you to discuss your short-term and long-term goals for you and your family. She will use that information to create an estate plan that fits your needs. Below are some of the tools that may be included in an estate plan.
- Wills: A Will outlines how assets should be distributed after your death. For parents, a will is the only way to name a guardian for your minor children.
- Trusts: This estate planning option allows you to transfer ownership of your assets to a trust and keep your affairs private. A Revocable Living Trust includes what is termed a pour-over will.
- Planning for Children: Families with minor children have unique needs. As part of your estate plan, you need to name a guardian to provide for your children’s care. You can also set up a minor’s trust, or you may need a special needs trust.
- Estate Planning for Non-Traditional Families: Address the needs of your non-traditional family. The firm assists all types of families, including grandparents raising their grandchildren, people on a second or subsequent marriage, and those in a same-sex marriage or civil union.
- Asset Protection: You can use a range of advanced estate planning solutions to accommodate your family’s specific needs, provide for future generations, and protect assets from seizure by creditors
- Gun Trusts: Establish a NFA “gun trust,” which holds your firearm collection. With a “gun” trust you retain ownership and control of your collection during your lifetime while providing for the disposition of your guns to your intended beneficiaries. During your lifetime, you remain the trustee and beneficiary of the gun trust, and appoint a successor trustee and lifetime and remainder beneficiaries. Because the trust is revocable, you are free to make changes or revoke it at any time. Trust Your Gun creates a full package gun trust. Visit Trust Your Gun for more information.
- Boutique Trusts: If new assets are acquired or forgotten you may need a boutique trust, which are stand alone trusts or amendments to a current trust that takes care of special assets. Boutique trusts include digital asset trusts, pet trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and other smaller specialized items.
- Business Succession Planning: You’ve worked hard to build your business, and you want to know that it’s in good hands when you retire or pass away. Sheri has established relationships with local business law attorneys to create a succession legacy that works with your estate plan
- Family Limited Partnerships: An FLP lets you provide for your family for generations to come, limits estate taxes, protects assets, and complements your trust planning. You may need a Family Limited Liability Company, an option for small family business owners.
- Estate Tax Planning: Estate taxes can consume a substantial amount of your hard-earned assets. As part of the estate planning process, Sheri coordinates with your CPA to structure an estate that limits family tax obligations. Additionally, it limits estate taxes and protects assets.
