Estate Planning New Year’s Resolutions For 2025
Congratulations on making it through 2024. Even if you still feel young, you are old enough that living to see another year counts as a victory. You are too old for unrealistic New Year’s resolutions like eliminating all enjoyable foods from your diet or becoming fabulously wealthy, but you are just the right age to start working on your estate plan, if you have not done so already. Estate planning is an ongoing process. No one expects you to spend an entire year fixating on your wealth and your mortality. Instead, focus on a few estate planning goals that are time sensitive, then reward yourself with some that are more fun, and after that, you can consider your New Year’s resolution accomplished, and you can safely ignore your estate plan until next year. For help with the challenging parts of your estate plan, contact an Orlando estate planning lawyer.
Draft a Medical Advance Directive
You might not care about money, but if you care about your family or friends, you need a medical advance directive. This document, also known as a healthcare power of attorney, authorizes the person you designate in the document to consent to medical treatment for you if you become too ill to voice your consent. It also lists which treatments you want the designated representative to authorize and which ones you do not want him or her to consent to.
Establish a Revocable Trust
The beauty of trusts is that they do not go through probate. Therefore, they enable their beneficiaries to begin receiving an inheritance from you before your estate settles or, if the trust instrument indicates this, even while you are still alive. Even if you only transfer a small amount of property to the revocable trust this year, that is plenty. Because the trust is revocable, you can modify its trust instrument as many times as you want to during your lifetime, and you can always transfer more property to it in future years or even list it as a beneficiary of your will.
Review Your Will, or Draft a Will If You Do Not Have One Yet
If you have already written a will, you are off to a good start. Read it and see if you want to make any changes. If you do, write a new version of your will, in which you state that it abrogates your previous will. Then sign your new will in the presence of two adult witnesses, who must also sign it, so that it becomes legally valid.
Be More Generous With Cash Gifts This Year
This year’s annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000. This means you can give up to $19,000 each to as many recipients as you choose, and you do not have to pay gift taxes on the gift. You can do this even if you have previously given cash gifts to the same recipients.
Contact Gierach and Gierach About Looking Beyond the New Year
An estate planning lawyer can help you update your estate plan to put yourself and the people you love in a strong financial position. Contact Gierach and Gierach, P.A. in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
irs.gov/newsroom/irs-releases-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2025#:~:text=Annual%20exclusion%20for%20gifts%20increases,%2418%2C000%20for%20calendar%20year%202024.
