Your Proper Colorado Estate Plan

Summary:  You must identify and solve the biggest issues in your estate plan, so that your intentions are carried out by you instead of the state of Colorado and the U.S. government. Take care of yourself and your family. Doing nothing is very costly.

The Major Benefits of Estate Planning

You plans and intentions are carried out as follows:

1. You have sufficient income during retirement, including proper health care.
2. You have a master strategy for the disposition of your assets and minimization of taxes and other expenses.
3. Proper disposition of assets. You give your property to who you intend, with the most satisfaction to you and your family. There are no mistakes with unintended results. You accomplish what you intend. Sometimes this means that you do not give everything to your Surviving Spouse.
4. You protect and enhance the relationships between your family members. Avoid disputes. This includes providing for education and other personal growth opportunities.
5. You consider special needs, for yourself and other family members. Such as incapacity and special needs such as disability.
6. Correct ownership of your assets, to avoid unintended results. Be careful of joint tenancy form of ownership.
7. Correct beneficiary designations to avoid unintended results.
8. You minimize transfer costs, such as Colorado probate, when you transfer assets to other family members.
9. You minimize income tax, by taking advantage of the step-up in income tax on capital gain assets. You do not convert capital gain assets to ordinary income tax.
10. You minimize and eliminate estate and gift tax.

The bottom line is that you have a master strategy to meet your financial and family welfare objectives. You make sure that your estate plan is properly implemented to accomplish this master strategy.

If you do nothing, your costs increase and your family relationships suffer.