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An internal government audit has found that Social Security is underpaying many widows and widowers, because it is failing to adequately inform them of their options.

One of the most important and difficult decisions people must make when they are considering retirement, is when to start taking Social Security benefits. The longer people delay taking benefits, the more they will receive per month.

To get the maximum amount of lifetime benefits, people need to factor in their life expectancy. This is difficult enough for people who are just having to decide when to take their own benefits. However, it becomes even more difficult for those...

If you want to plan in advance for your own funeral so that your family does not have to make the arrangements, one of the questions to consider is whether or not you should also pay in advance. The answer might depend on your expected Medicaid needs.

In general, it is a good idea to pre-plan your own funeral. This allows you to determine where and how your remains will be handled. It also removes a potential burden for your family, when they will be in mourning over you.

Funeral homes offer many different types of pre-planning packages that include various levels of services. You can often even transfer a plan between funeral homes, if...

Some people think that scientists are not far away from creating the technology that will let human beings live forever. However, do not let that hope delay your estate planning.

Considering how many people delay getting estate plans, it might seem like the consensus is that most of us will live forever. If we never will pass away, then we will not have estates that need to be distributed after we pass away. For now, however, the idea of eternal life remains a matter of science fiction for many.

On the other hand, some people think it might not be fiction for very much longer, though as the Daily Mail reports in "Could you live forever?...

If there are things that you are hoping to do before you pass away, let your doctor know so that the doctor can better develop your treatments.

An unfortunate reality of modern medical care is that doctors do not always have the time or inclination to get to know their elderly patients very well on a personal level. Doctors can read charts and make medical findings, but they do not always know the desires and goals of their patients. When coming up with treatment plans and schedules, doctors do not normally take into account what the patient might want besides medical care.

Most elderly people do want other things.

Almost everyone has a...

Family business owners who would like to leave a charitable legacy behind when they pass away have a unique way that they can do so. They can donate some of their business interests to charity without affecting their own lifestyles very much.

As people get wealthier, their estate planning goals normally begin to get a lot more diverse. People with only a few assets typically have a main goal of making sure those assets go to provide for their families. However, the wealthy have plenty of assets to make sure their family members are taken care of and accomplish other things in their estate plans.

For many another important goal is leaving...

One of the unintended consequences of the new federal tax law, is that it makes enormous tax savings possible for those willing and able to get creative with trust formation.

If you have read anything about the recently passed tax cuts President Trump signed, you have probably read that a few of the changes seem relatively simple. Under the new law, the estate tax exemption limit is doubled to $11 million for an individual and $22 million for a married couple.

The major complication is that the exemption limit is scheduled to return to previous levels in a few years. However, there are more complications to the changes than that, as...

Families that provide care for elderly relatives face large expenses. There are a few tax breaks that can help to defray some of the costs.

When it comes to caring for its elderly population, the U.S. has begun to enter something of a crisis zone. Many people are aware of pending challenges facing government programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. Those programs will either need to soon find more funding or be restructured.

There are other difficulties that tend to be under the radar, when it comes to caring for the elderly.

One example of that is increasing life expectancies for elderly people. Many are living longer than they...

People who suddenly inherit wealth and who do not know how to handle it, can face many difficulties. For lottery winners, sudden wealth can bring even more trouble.

One of the key principles in estate planning is this: it is not a good idea to leave heirs a great amount of wealth outright, especially if they are not already wealthy. People who do inherit wealth like that, tend to fall victim to many different traps.

They often waste the wealth on frivolous items. They gamble. They fall for the schemes of people who seek to manage the wealth for their own benefits. In estate planning, there are ways to avoid these traps, so heirs receive...

One of the reasons that you should not try to create your own trust, is that the specific language in the trust can make a very big difference in how the trust will be enforced.

It is now relatively easy to have a trust drawn up. You can even do it yourself, with the help of downloadable forms that can be purchased online. A cottage industry even exists to encourage people to go this route.

By going to a website, answering a few questions and making a small payment, people can quickly get a revocable living trust that can serve as their estate plan. There are some very good reasons why going that route can be a very bad idea.

One of the...

The man at the center of one of the most famous elder abuse cases in the country, Phillip Marshall, still works to prevent elder abuse.

A few years ago, a major scandal hit New York's high society. Brooke Astor, a wealthy heiress, was in cognitive decline. She had wanted to leave her vast fortune to charitable causes and her son, Anthony Marshall, was charged with scheming to take advantage for his own financial benefit. He might have been successful, if not for the efforts of his own son, Phillip Marshall, who blew the whistle and who was ultimately successful in stopping the abuse.

Financial Advisor has more on this remarkable story in

A recent study found that people who retire earlier than similarly situated people, tend to live longer. However, that result is likely not directly related to the fact of early retirement itself.

One of the many questions people face as they approach their elder years, is deciding when to retire. For some people, the decision is primarily made on the basis of their finances.

Those who have saved more than others can retire earlier. However, for some people the decision also includes lifestyle preferences.

Many would prefer to continue working, even though they can afford to retire. A new study might throw another factor into the...

The founder of Ikea, one of the richest men in the world, passed away recently. His plans for what will happen to his family business are unusual.

Most of the time people who appear on lists of the richest people in the world are happy to be on the lists. They sometimes have been known to argue that their wealth has been underestimated and they should be higher on the list than they are.

However, Ingvar Kamprad was unusual.

He is best known for founding the iconic furniture company Ikea. Many might have a bad memory about his company from frustrating attempts at trying to put the furniture together, but Kamprad's family might have...

The House of Representatives recently passed an important piece of legislation that will help protect the elderly from financial exploitation.

What is one of the many issues hindering the fight against financial abuse of the elderly? The people who are often in the best position to notice it, fear speaking up about it.

People who work at financial institutions and insurance companies often see suspicious transactions. If they report their suspicions to authorities, they open themselves up to potential liability, if it turns out that they were wrong. In fact, they may be in trouble even if they were correct, but the abuse cannot be...

The estate of one of Jackie Kennedy's relatives is suing an art collector over a portrait of the former First Lady that was painted when she was 19. The painting is believed to have been lost or stolen decades ago.

When Jackie Bouvier was 19 years old, she fell off a horse. It was not certain whether she would survive, since she was unconscious for a few days.

Shortly thereafter, her father commissioned an oil painting of her to make sure that a lasting memory of his daughter was preserved. The young woman did survive and went on to became one of the most recognizable and iconic women in the country, when she later became Jackie Kennedy,...

It would be unfortunate to create a will and have no one be able to find it after you pass away.

Getting an estate plan is not the most difficult thing you will ever do. An experienced estate planning attorney will do most of the work of making sure you have an estate plan that will be effective at fulfilling your wishes.

However, you still would have put a lot of time and thought into the process, so you can tell the attorney what your wishes are. This is true, even if your estate plan consists of nothing more than a simple will.

It would be a shame if it cannot be carried out after you pass away.

That happens more often than it should...

Wills and trusts are sometimes thought of as equivalent estate planning tools that do the same thing, only with different processes. There is an important legal distinction between the two.

When planning for their estates, many people consider whether it is better for them to get a will or a trust. Much of this consideration centers on the probate process because many people assume that wills and trusts do the same things.

People know that wills have to go through probate, while trusts do not. Therefore, if they do not want their estates to go through probate, they should get a trust. While it is true that ultimately wills and trusts...

It is possible that with a little bit of reading and perhaps downloading a few forms, that you can create an estate plan for yourself. It is usually a mistake to do so.

Most people would prefer to avoid paying for the services of an attorney, if they can avoid doing so. This is true even in estate planning.

Many people think they have straightforward desires regarding who should get their assets after they pass away. As a result, they do a little bit of research and may download a form or two to guide them. After a few hours, they have something that constitutes an estate plan and think they have saved money.

The problem is that estates...

The obituary of an Indiana man who passed away recently has gone viral on the Internet. However, it was not because it showed how unique the man was but because it showed how normal he was.

Most obituaries are somber plain affairs that give a brief overview of the important events in the life of a decedent and their closest family members they now left behind. The obituaries are printed in the local newspaper and normally forgotten fairly quickly by everyone who was not close to the deceased.

Terri Ward's obituary has earned him some postmortem fame on the Internet. Ward was an army veteran living in Indiana, who recently passed away....

People who suffer from Alzheimer's disease do not suddenly forget everything. Instead their memories fade over time leading to some unique situations, as the story of one couple in New Zealand illustrates.

Alzheimer's works in ways that cannot be predicted. What memories will disappear and when they will disappear can often seem random.

Michael Joyce of New Zealand suffers from Alzheimer's disease. He had been married to his wife for 38 years and eventually the disease progressed enough that he forgot he was married. In most cases, this would be a cause of deep pain for Joyce's wife.

It is not easy for family members when patients forget...

It is not yet known how the IRS will handle things if people make gifts now that will exceed the exemption limits that are scheduled for 2026, when the new exemptions will sunset to previous levels.

The tax cuts passed late last year include provisions that double estate tax and gift tax exemption limits. That is good news on multiple fronts for many people. It means that some of them will no longer have their estates subject to the estate tax and others can gift more than previously to help decrease the size of their estates.

However, the new exemption limits are scheduled to sunset in 2026 and revert back to $5.5 million for...

If you have significant wealth tied up in your individual retirement account, it is likely that you may not use it all before you pass away. That makes it important to designate the right beneficiary for the account and, in some cases, that might mean designating a trust.

One of the things people often overlook when they are considering estate planning, is what to do with their retirement accounts. Many people have enormous sums in their IRAs and they will not use them all during their own retirements.

Any funds left over after the account holder passes away, will go to the designated beneficiary on the account. Because this can amount to...

It is unlikely that you and your spouse will pass away at the same time, so it is important to prepare for what will happen when one of you passes first, to make sure the other has what he or she will need.

One of the last things many elderly couples would prefer to think about is what will happen when one of them outlives the other. However, that will most likely be the case for all couples.

This can be a big issue to deal with emotionally. When it happens, the surviving spouse will not want to have to worry about finances. USA Today discusses this issue in "How to prepare financially for being a widow/widower."{: target="_blank"}

Here...

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 might be different than before. There is no single answer since it depends on individual...

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 mentioned in a will that was executed before the divorce, then in most...

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 things to think through before changing your estate plan as a result of the new law, as Forbes...