We talk a lot about taxes on this blog—as well as health care and retirement issues—but what if we could look into the future and tell you what all of these issues would look like four years from now? You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?

Well, we can’t tell you for sure what our health care system will be like in four years, or if retirement will be any easier; but in one week we elect a new president and we can help you learn where each candidate stands on each of these issues. Essentially, the future of Estate Taxes, Healthcare, or Social Security is up to us—we decide with our vote on November fourth.

Below are links to accurate and unbiased websites which provide detailed information (and in some cases side by side comparisons) about where the candidates fall on various issues. Take a look and glimpse the future… And don’t forget to vote.

CNN Money.com: With a focus on tax issues, the economy, social security, and business interests

Health08.org: A side-by-side analysis of where each candidate stands on healthcare or health related issues

National Public Radio (NPR.org): Candidate positions on other election issues

If you are a Baby Boomer you have it rough these days. Not only are you trying to plan for your own retirement and old age in a deteriorating economy, but it’s likely you have to plan for your parents’ retirement and old age as well. (In fact, some of you are your parents’ plan for old age!) It may not be an urgent need yet, but I’m sure you have questions and are looking for answers.

Well, if you have time on October 30 at 1pm E.T. tune in with NAELA (National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys) and AARP (American Association of Retired People) for their free webcast entitled “Aging in America-How to Plan for It”. These are knowledgeable people who can provide good answers to the questions you have about how to plan for your own future and that of your parents, what options you have and how to stay in control, and when you really need to start taking action.

Of course, if you don’t have time on October 30, or if you want answers sooner, you can always call our office. Our own knowledgeable staff is available to provide the answers and assistance you need to navigate the ever more complicated terrain of aging in America.And we can address your unique situation and specific questions. We know you Baby Boomers have it hard, and we want to help.

Do you know what is going to happen to your assets after you die? Even if you have created a Last Will and Testament you may not be able to answer “yes” to that question. Widow Margaret Amrich thought she was ensuring the answer when she created her Will, a thought in which she was mistaken, according to this article by Melissa Bailey. Ms. Amrich had no immediate heirs, and her Will left all but $500 of her assets (the largest of which was her home) to a local Community Foundation to be used for crippled children. With no family to fight over her wishes, no extensive assets to sort through, and clear directions written into her Will, it all seemed too easy.

Unfortunately, setting down your wishes in a Will is not always enough. Twenty months after her death, Ms. Amrich’s designated charity is only just receiving its inheritance, due to a long probate process and the shady mishandling of the sale of her home by the estate’s appointed executor.

There are ways to better ensure that your wishes will be followed after your death. Creating a Revocable Trust is an excellent way to avoid the lengthy probate process. It also allows you to build checks and balances into your estate plan with ease. One way to create checks and balances is to appoint co-Trustees to “keep each other honest”. Another is to appoint a Trust Advisor, someone who could request accountings of the Trustee and serve as a mediator in the event that a dispute arises between parties named in your estate plan.

Don’t let your assets end up in limbo; call our office to help you create a plan that follows your wishes for the distribution of your estate in a reliable and timely manner.

The current state of the economy may be putting us all in a tight squeeze, but no cloud is without its silver lining, as Anne Tergesen points out in her Wall Street Journal article. The silver lining in this particular cloud is that the depressed economy and sinking stocks offer an unmatched opportunity to pass on wealth to your heirs without triggering estate tax as you do.

Most people know by now that in the year 2010 the estate tax is scheduled to disappear entirely. . . but only temporarily. Until that year arrives—and then again after that year passes (no one really expects we will have the good fortune to do away with estate tax permanently), we have to face the fact that our children and heirs won’t be getting all of our hard-earned fortune when we die. The government gets some of it. And unless we plan intelligently, the government can end up getting a large portion of it.

Our office can’t fix the economy, but we can help you find the silver lining around that dark cloud. Let us help you ensure that your family receives the inheritance they deserve; whether it be in 2010 or in any other year.

The final post in our series focuses on the part of your Estate Plan having to do with healthcare. This is the section that is likely to change most often, and will require the most frequent review and update.

The backbone of the healthcare portion of your Estate Plan is of course your Advanced Health Care Directive (or Health Care Power of Attorney). In this document you record your wishes and instructions for your medical treatment—including any existing conditions or illnesses—as well as the people you nominate as your healthcare agents, those who will make healthcare decisions for you if you are unable. Your Advanced Health Care Directive should be updated whenever you have a major change in your health status.

Also included in the healthcare portion of your Estate Plan is your HIPAA Authorization, which gives the hospital and medical staff permission to share your health status with the people you’ve nominated as your healthcare agents. Your HIPAA should be updated every time you nominate new agents, or every 2-3 years to keep it “fresh” in the eyes of hospital personnel.

A lesser known part of the healthcare portion of your Estate Plan is your disability panel, included in your Trust. This is a list of the people authorized to determine your incapacity for purposes of handling trust accounts. A court of law is automatically authorized to make this decision, but you can also name a panel of doctors, professionals, loved ones, or a combination of any of those to determine your ability to make financial decisions relating to the Trust. Your disability panel does not need to be updated regularly, but should be reviewed at least as often as you review your list of healthcare agents.

This second in our three part series focuses on the financial portions of your Estate Plan, listing the documents that give your trustees and agents the financial powers they need to manage your finances in your absence. Generally, once you decide who will manage your money when you can’t, and who will get what when you die, you next want to know how all that is going to be accomplished.

First and foremost, you have named Trustees; these are the people who will—with perfect impartiality—be administering your trust property exactly as you have designed. Trustees will also sometimes be referred to as Executors, as in executor of your will, although the trustee of your trust and the executor of your will can actually be different people.

And how is it that your trustees are able to deal with your financial institutions? How does the bank know to give that person access to your accounts? You give your Trustees this power in your Durable Power of Attorney. The Power of Attorney is a document which gives the people named therein as agents all of the permissions and powers they need to interact with financial institutions on your behalf. This is usually a long laundry list of powers, which go into effect only when you have been declared incapacitated.

In addition to the Durable Power of Attorney, you will likely also sign a Nomination of Conservator. This is a short document that does not expressly give your agent any powers, but it does tell a judge in no uncertain terms who you would like to make decisions for you in the event that you are unable to make your own financial decisions. Rather than expressly giving powers, the Nomination of Conservator is an easy document that significantly shortens a potentially long and grueling court procedure should you ever need a conservator of your estate.

Come back Friday to read the final post in our series, in which we address the healthcare portion of your Estate Plan; the Advanced Health Care Directive, HIPAA Authorization, and your disability panel.

When the time comes each year to review your estate plan, the thought of looking through all that paperwork and legal language can be daunting. But the job can be made easier if it is broken down into parts to be reviewed one at a time. Every complete estate plan can be divided into at least three separate but related sections. This week we will publish a series of posts highlighting the documents that make up each of these sections.

The part of your estate plan with which you are probably most concerned is the distribution of assets. After all, for most people, ensuring that their assets are distributed how they want and to whom they want is what drives them to see an attorney in the first place. Your Trust is the main document that describes and gives instruction for the distribution of assets; specifically, in articles with titles such as “Distribution to my Descendents”, “Distribution of Remaining Trust Property”, “Remote Contingent Distribution”, or the like. However, three other documents in your estate plan deserve your attention on the subject of distribution as well.

Your Will is an important document which deals with distribution of assets. If you have a Trust it is likely that all of your assets are owned by that Trust, and your Will is probably a short document stating simply that any assets not included in your Trust should be put into your Trust and distributed accordingly. However, if you created your Will before you decided to create your Trust, you could have conflicting documents and should ask your attorney for a new Will which mentions the existence of your Trust.

Two other smaller, but important documents pertaining to distribution are the Assignment of Personal Property and the Personal Property Memorandum. The Assignment of Personal Property is a document which transfers all of your smaller, tangible property (such as cars, antiques, artwork, furniture, etc.) into the name of your trust, thus avoiding probate. This document is one that should be renewed (re-signed) every 2-5 years to ensure that all assets—even your most recent purchases—are included. The Personal Property Memorandum is the document in which you give specific property to particular people, for example your diamond ring to your granddaughter, or your baseball card collection to your favorite nephew. This is a very simple document, and can even be handwritten, but it should be kept with your trust, and even be referred to in your trust, if at all possible.

Come back Wednesday to read our next post in the series about financial agents and powers of attorney.

Last week President Bush signed the economic bailout bill, but what you probably don’t know is that attached to that bill was a requirement that health insurance groups provide equal coverage of physical and mental illnesses. What this means is that any insurance provider whose coverage includes treatment for mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, or even alcoholism must offer equal coverage for those illnesses as for physical ailments such as pneumonia or broken bones.

Of course this makes any Estate Planning Attorney’s mind turn to the health provisions we provide our clients in their estate plans, specifically the Advanced Health Care Directive. Most people, when they consider what to include in their Advanced Health Care Directive, think for the most part about what instructions to give their agents about pulling (or not pulling) the plug when a doctor declares you brain dead. But perhaps it’s time to make the Health Care Directive more comprehensive. If insurance providers will soon be addressing mental illnesses, shouldn’t we?

Our culture is full of idioms like the one in the title, idioms that we take for granted until something like the mortgage crisis and rapidly dwindling stock market puts it all back into perspective for us.

The current financial crisis has touched all of our lives, but perhaps nobody has been hit quite so hard as retirees and workers who are nearing retirement age. These are the people who have been saving for years for retirement, only to watch it all dwindle away as the market falls, with no end in sight. It wouldn’t be quite so painful if they had years to recover, to wait for the markets to rebound; but they don’t. These are the people who are only a year or two away from retirement, or in some cases already retired and making withdrawals from their savings plans.

Many in this situation will have to put off retirement, working 2-5 years more with the hope that their investments will recover in time. But a luckier few will be able to weather the storm, and perhaps learn from it. Emily Brandon’s article, How to Retire During a Financial Crisis, addresses this issue, and gives readers some suggestions on how to prepare for a market downturn, making it possible to come out on top even if you are close to retirement (or already retired) when tragedy strikes.

Do women have a disproportional amount of responsibility when it comes to caring for aging parents? As members of the “sandwich generation” watch their parents age, they find themselves falling more and more into stereotypical care-giving gender roles. Or so claims Jane Gross in her NY Times blog The New Old Age. In her post from September 23, Gross gives advice to women who find themselves taking on the role of caregiver, while their siblings, (and brothers are mentioned specifically) watch from afar.

Gross recommends the website Dutiful Daughters (and Sainted Sons) which provides coping and caring resources for children who have taken on the care-giving role. The website belongs to a group of Elder Care Advocates and Geriatric Care Managers whose goal it is to better equip and support those children who find themselves thrown—sometimes reluctantly—into the role of caregiver.

Gross goes out on a limb in this blog post, sharing the less-than-generous feelings she had toward her own brother when he was less involved than she in caring for their mother, and she shares her experience in accepting and coming to terms with this inequality. The reactions and comments from her readers range from grateful and understanding to horrified and angry. They mirror the range of reactions that can be found in adult children who are caring for their parents without the help of siblings.

What is truly tragic about this is how often family relationships are ruined by these fights between family members. Some siblings even go so far as to take legal action against one another. As Jane Gross can tell you, there is no easy solution to this issue, but certain steps taken early can help to relieve the tension. Going with your siblings to see an Elder Law Attorney can give everyone a clear picture of the extreme financial and physical demands placed on care-givers, and how to best deal with those demands—not each alone, but as a family.