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Hopp & Associates, pc
Attorneys and Counselors at Law
353 Main Street
Longmont, Colorado
303 • 776 • 4045
Simple Sophisticated
Estate Planning
Wealth Planning News
Vol. II, No. 1
Wealth Planning Goals
• Maintain the dignity of control of your person and your finances.
• Assure your lifestyle.
• Protect your assets from litigation.
• Minimize income and capital gains taxes.
• Effectively manage and protect business and investments.
• Benefit loved ones and your charities in a smart way.
• Minimize or entirely avoid gift, estate, and IRD taxes.
• Retain personal and financial privacy.
• Avoid administrative delays and expenses.
• Pass responsibility, dignity, and full value of assets to loved ones.
An Assured Lifestyle
Here are some techniques to achieve the goal of an assured lifestyle:
Minimize Income Taxes
If you are a professional or own your own business, be sure your business entity is structured to minimize double taxation, and to avoid undue self-employment taxes. Know the business deductions you are entitled to take, and take them.
Disability Protection Before Retirement
Meet living needs for yourself and loved ones if you become disabled. Review needs and sources of income in the event of disability. Obtain a review of insurance issues. Beware of coverage exclusions, tax issues, and costs.
Salary Continuation Plans
Consider techniques to provide a steady and assured source of retirement income from a family business.
Retirement Plans
Qualified retirement savings can be an important source of retirement income. Review future needs and sources of income, timing and choice of distributions, and tax issues. Learn about later IRD taxes and how to minimize these taxes for your loved ones.
Tax Favored Life Insurance
Learn about techniques to let you deduct insurance premiums from current income, and later shelter cash flows and death benefits from taxes.
Long Term Health Care
As retirement approaches, review possible future nursing home or in home nursing costs, and review long-term health care insurance issues.
Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation
Learn of techniques to build up a source of future income in addition to that from qualified plans.
CRATs, CRUTs, and NIMCRUTs
Charitable remainder annuity trusts, charitable remainder unitrusts can help you convert paper profits to an assured lifestyle, with current income tax deductions, the deferral or outright avoidance of capital gains taxes, and gift and estate tax savings. You may also benefit chosen charities at your death.
QPRTs
Qualified personal residence trusts shift a residence and growth in the value of the residence out of your taxed estate. You stay in the house and keep the benefits of home ownership for income tax purposes, including deductions of mortgage interest, plus shelter up to $250,000 ($500,000 if married) from capital gains taxes on later sale of a primary residence.
Super Trusts
Super trusts have features that allow you to remove assets from your taxed estate, protect the assets from future creditors, and still provide benefits to loved ones such as a spouse who might then share such benefits with you.
GRATs and GRUTs
Grantor retained annuity trusts and grantor retained unitrusts shift assets, and growth in the value of such assets, out of your estate for estate tax purposes while you reserve an income flow from such a trust for a term of years.
Family Limited Partnerships
FLPs can own your investment assets. They produce significant asset protection, and can also result in significant valuation discounts for gift and estate tax purposes. You maintain investment control of assets in the business entity, and decide on income distributions.
Offshore Entities
Offshore asset protection trusts, offshore limited partnerships, and international business corporations provide a wide spectrum of asset protection. If properly designed, they result in no additional income taxes to you. Because your investment assets are protected from loss to catastrophic creditor claims, you can have an assured source of funds for your lifestyle, despite claims that can arise in our litigious society.
Call us for a free consultation to discuss your own issues, goals, and how to reach them.
In This Issue
Wealth Planning Goals
An Assured Lifestyle