by John C. Martin | Aug 17, 2012 | Estate Plan Maintenance, Estate Planning for Families
What happens when a trust is set up during the lifetime of a surviving spouse, and that spouse later remarries? Spousal trusts are often established in order to minimize estate tax or to provide a stream of income to the spouse during lifetime. Upon death of the...
by John C. Martin | Aug 2, 2012 | Estate Plan Maintenance, Family Values and History
If you own a car, then you know it requires regular servicing in order to perform well and be reliable. More than likely, your car came with a recommended schedule for service, based on how many miles it has been driven. After a certain number of miles, you need to...
by John C. Martin | Jul 19, 2012 | Estate Plan Maintenance, Estate Planning for Families
You have signed all of your estate planning documents and, if your plan includes trusts, completed their funding. You sit back, relax, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with completing that task. But don’t bask in that feeling for too long—estate planning is an...
by John C. Martin | Jul 13, 2012 | Advanced Directive, Estate Plan Maintenance, Estate Planning for Families, Living Will
March 31, 2012 marked the seventh anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old who succumbed after her feeding tube was removed as part of a very public legal battle between her husband and parents. As you may recall, Terri Schiavo was in a coma...
by John C. Martin | Jun 27, 2012 | Digital Assets, Estate Plan Maintenance, Estate Planning for Families
It wasn’t very long ago that we had only paper for financial and tax records. We could simply point to a file cabinet or drawer and tell someone, “Everything is in there when the time comes.” But now we have computers and the internet, and so much of our lives is...