Planning for the time when we’ll no longer be around is something we all need to do, yet it’s a task that’s easy to postpone. However, it’s probably not difficult for you to think of someone you know who has waited until it was too late. Then, the remaining family members had to live with the emotional and financial damage that comes from the lack of planning.

Regardless of whether you’ve done any estate planning in the past, now’s a good time to make sure everything is in order. For example:

• Do you have an up-to-date will, durable power of attorney, power of attorney for health care and directive to physicians (or living will)?

• If you’re married, do both of your wills provide that everything passes outright to the surviving spouse? If so, and your combined estates are likely to exceed $1.5 million (including the value of such assets as personal residences, retirement plans and life insurance policies), the estate of the surviving spouse is likely to owe estate tax that could have been avoided. The most common way to reduce or eliminate this problem is to provide in each spouse’s will for a so-called bypass (or credit-shelter) trust.

• If you have minor children, does your will name a guardian for them?

• Have you considered assets that will pass to your heirs outside the terms of your will? Assets with a named beneficiary (such as retirement plans and life insurance policies) or held as joint tenants with right of survivorship (or similar manner) pass directly to the beneficiary or co-owner, without regard to your will. This can be a problem if you do not have sufficient assets subject to your will to fund a bypass trust.

• If your estate will likely exceed $1.5 million (or yours and your spouse’s, $3 million), have you considered additional planning techniques – such as making gifts to family members; transferring life insurance policies to an irrevocable life insurance trust; or setting up a family limited partnership, charitable trust or a qualified personal residence trust – to reduce or eliminate the estate tax that will ultimately be due?

• And finally, are you maximizing the tax-free or tax-deferred advantages of your Roth IRA, traditional IRA and other retirement plans by carefully choosing who you name as primary and secondary beneficiaries?

These are only some of the numerous opportunities to save potentially tens or even hundreds of thousands of tax dollars. However, it’s up to you to take the first step. Please call us today. We’ll be glad to help you begin your estate planning (or review an existing plan) and to help keep things on track until the task is completed.