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With increased estate tax exemptions, many people wonder what it will mean for estate planning and whether there will be less need for them to plan. One way to figure out the answers is to look at what estate planning attorneys expect to happen.

The recently passed tax changes include a doubling of the estate tax exemptions. This has made many well-off families happy, but it has also left many of them wondering how they should respond to the changes.

People are not quite sure whether they still need to make estate plans now and if so, how their plans...

If you get divorced, it is important that you revisit your estate plan to make sure your ex-spouse is excluded, if desired, and that what he or she would have received is distributed to someone else.

The U.S. has a high divorce rate. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.

The rates are even higher for second and third marriages. One of the issues concerning the high divorce rate is that people get distracted by the divorce itself and then fail to update their estate planning afterwards.

Ex-spouses are routinely left in many estate plans.

If an ex-spouse is...

The doubling of the estate tax exemption limits recently signed into law, has important implications for many estate plans. It is a good idea to consider what you might want to do as a result.

Many people had hoped that President Trump’s tax reform bill would lead to the end of the estate tax. That proved to be too expensive for the government to include in the bill. However, the estate tax exemption limits were doubled.

While that is not as good as many wealthy families had hoped, it is still a benefit for some wealthy people. There are some...

Preserving family wealth between generations requires proper estate planning. However, that may not be enough. It is also important to make sure that younger generations know what to do with the wealth.

Throughout its history, the U.S. has had many extremely wealthy citizens. Some of those citizens left vast sums to their heirs and some of those families are still wealthy and known today.

However, for a country that has had so many wealthy citizens, the U.S. seemingly has very few lasting dynasties.

We rarely hear about the descendants of wealthy people who do not have any of that wealth...

President Trump signed tax cuts into law recently. Researchers are finding minor changes that people were unaware of before the bill was passed.

One of the consequences of recent tax reform, was that it did not give people very much time to anticipate all of the changes to the tax code before the bill was voted on, passed and signed into law. The massive bill was amended repeatedly in the last few days. As a result, very few people had the opportunity to read and comment on it.

While most of the big ticket items in the bill were known...