Camarillo Estate Law And Real Estate Law Blog

In California and elsewhere, one of the key planning issues for an individual or married couple is choosing who to serve as executors, trustees, power of attorney agents, health proxies and other positions. Ideally, the estate planning documents will include alternate choices if the first fails to serve or qualify. Generally, people choose their immediate family members or closest friends. Occasionally, they may select an institution for all or some of the duties. 

The most important appointment is the personal representative, also called the executor, of the decedent's estate. Where the maker passes significant assets by his or her will, the personal representative faces a solemn and substantial undertaking. The directing instrument is the will. Fortunately, the representative will work hand in hand with the estate attorney to carry out the required duties.

A California resident may have many different considerations when making up an estate planning checklist. One purpose of the list is to go over it with one's estate planning attorney in making up an initial estate plan. The estate plan is intended to take care of decisions to be made if one becomes incapacitated and unable to act and in the case of death.

Interestingly, over 60 percent of Americans don't even have a will let alone a full estate plan. It seems that facing one's mortality and being practical enough to plan for the best interest of one's family is not a primary motivator. Witness the one most famous recent personality to die without a will, the entertainer Prince. The ramifications on his family members and his business empire from the lack of planning are still reverberating in the courtrooms of his home state.

California residents who engage in estate planning often ask questions about the difference between a health care power of attorney and a living will. Generally, people have little understanding of what each does until they meet with their estate planning attorney for a review of their needs. A living will generally is a legal instrument that the individual signs and that expresses his or her concerns about end-of-life decisions.

It is an advance medical directive that tells doctors and health administrators how the patient wants to have treatment administered or not administered in the final days or weeks of life. The living will can advise the health care providers that the patient does not choose to have life artificially prolonged at the point that a terminal illness wipes out the patient's quality of life. Generally, this instrument is prepared by the estate planning attorney when the client requests the construction of an estate plan.

It was probably inevitable that Michael Jackson's estate would become embroiled in extended battles with the IRS over the value of his assets in California and elsewhere. One major sticking point is the value of Michael's name and likeness. Because these have the continuing potential to earn income, the IRS has contested the $2 million value listed by the executors. This issue may not have been amenable to estate planning protections, but other issues being fought out might have been better planned by his estate planners or perhaps better handled by his executors.

For estate tax purposes, most people will not experience tax issues. Federal taxes on an estate kick in at $5.6 million (over $11 million for married couples), and this is going higher under the new tax laws. In this controversy, the IRS claims that the artist's name and likeness should be valued at $434 million and it has assessed more than $700 million in taxes and penalties against the estate.