If you’re a South Floridian who loves to get spooked you probably gravitate towards haunted attractions, horror films, and gory costumes. We have something even more frightful up our sleeves that will give you a truly horrifying experience! You can live through your very own Halloween nightmare tale filled with accidental disinheritances, exorbitant taxes, and expensive probate litigation! You can watch small businesses collapse and witness the squandering of modest and large family fortunes right from the grave… when it’s too late! However, for those of us who don’t like to get scared and rather play on the safe side, here are some tips on preventing an “All Hallows’ Eve” of the estate.

First, do not erroneously assume your spouse, close friend, or even pets will be taken care of. You must specifically include your loved ones in your estate. Second, consider asset protection. It’s important to protect your beneficiaries from lawsuits, failed marriages, disability and wasteful spending. Finally, don’t do it all yourself. These do-it-yourself estate plans can create more problems than they solve. People title assets without understanding the legal ramifications behind it. There are risks and contingencies that need to be accounted for and only your South Florida attorney can help you with that.

To avoid another episode of “tales from the crypt,” it’s crucial to update your estate plan in the event of divorce. You should change the beneficiary designation form on your life insurance policy otherwise your ex-spouse will receive the proceeds. You should also account for any minor children in your will by appointing a guardian in the event you pass away. Otherwise, your children could end up wards of the state!

If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

“Lifestyles of the rich and famous” sings Good Charlotte, the American pop punk band from Waldorf, Maryland. The numbers are staggering. Today, there are more than 67 million Twitter users. Are you one of them? If so, please read closely. Celebrity Lady Gaga has 30,656,320 twitter followers (almost the current population of Canada), Justin Bieber 29,424,873 followers, Katy Perry 28,240,817 followers, Rihanna 26,407,641 followers and Britney Spears 21,380,602 followers. Are you a celebrity follower on Twitter? If so, please read even closer. We are a celebrity conscious culture. Celebrities consume more of our daily lives than ever before. Now, close your eyes. Imagine yourself being escorted out of a stretch Hummer limo, walking down the red carpet dressed in the finest designer clothes while being blinded by the flash bulbs of the surrounding paparazzi hoping to score that great shot. It’s the glitz and the glamour, the stardom, the wealth and influence that drives much of our society to live vicariously through celebrities. Fantasy never hurt anybody. “I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times”, said Lady Gaga. But BEWARE: DO NOT FALL VICTIM—LIKE MANY CELEBRITIES HAVE, TO ESTATE PLANNING GONE WRONG! Estate planning is reality.

“The beat goes on” wrote Sonny Bono, former musician and politician. In 1998, Bono tragically died of injuries from hitting a tree while skiing. Bono never wrote a will. After his death, a child he secretly fathered out of wedlock surfaced to claim part of his estate along with his ex-wife Cher.

LESSON LEARNED: We have no idea how much longer “the beat goes on.” It would be wise to act now given the unfavorable situation we may all be faced with. Embrace this opportunity while you still can and contact your South Florida estate planning attorney now. You need to arm yourself with the necessary estate planning tools to protect your legacy and more importantly, protect your family.

If guitar legend Jimi Hendrix could have “One rainy wish”, what do you think it would be? In 1970, Hendrix unexpectedly died at the age of 27. Hendrix never wrote a will. Although Hendrix was closest to his brother, the state awarded everything to his father who then left everything to his adopted daughter from another marriage. Hendrix’s brother received nothing.

LESSON LEARNED: It’s never too late to make your “One rainy wish” a reality. If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

Such nightmares could have been avoided by planning ahead.

Less than half of all Florida residents have an estate plan in place yet the death rate in Florida has held steady at 100 percent. The reason for this lapse in judgment is most likely due to a focus on the word “estate” rather than the word “planning.” The two biggest misconceptions made by most South Floridians that lack comprehensive estate planning is that they are either too young to worry about it or not wealthy enough to worry about. However, the fact remains that very rarely is estate planning solely about the money

To schedule your free consultation, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

Life insurance provides assurance for your family members after you die. But this is not enough. If not properly structured, your family members could be subjected to unnecessary, additional taxes. This can be avoided by seeking the help of a qualified and well-experienced South Florida estate planning attorney. Your estate can be strategically structured in order to avoid heavy taxation. This can be accomplished through the creation of an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT). This is a legal instrument that removes the life insurance from your gross estate through your relinquishment of control and transfers the benefits into the trust. The result is less taxation and increased asset protection for your loved ones. You can designate your spouse, child, or other appropriate party as the beneficiary of the trust and provide detailed instructions to the appointed trustee regarding management of the trust. You can specify your preferred life insurance distribution, when payments, loans, or investments should be made, and when to terminate the trust. Establishing an ILIT today will ensure more protection for your family in the future.

If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

According to Bloomberg News, when Romney engages in estate planning, it’s all about leaving assets for heirs while dodging gift and estate tax. With his strategic “I Dig It” trust, his beneficiaries get a triple benefit. This type of trust known as the “intentionally defective grantor trust” is used by many high net-worth individuals to give potentially unlimited amounts to children while avoiding tax in three ways. First, multimillionaires assign a low value to assets they transfer to the trust. Second, when the trust sells assets at a handsome profit, a relatively low capital gains tax is paid. Finally, by paying these taxes, a settlor can reduce the pile of wealth leaving heirs potentially free of gift and estate taxes.

The Republican presidential candidate set up this type of trust for his children and grandchildren back in the mid-90’s known as the Ann and Mitt Romney 1995 Family Trust. It received shares in the Internet advertising firm DoubleClick, Inc eight months before the company went public. The trust sold them less than a year after its IPO. The trust’s sale made it possible to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate and gift taxes. By 1999, the trust reaped a 1,000 percent return on the sale of these shares. If he had given the cash outright, he could have owed a gift tax at a rate as high as 55 percent. This technique entails contributing assets before they appreciate or are difficult to value, and then claim the gift tax obligation as low or non-existent since the appraised value is low or zero. Because Romney’s shares were already in the trust before the sale, no gift or estate tax would be imposed on the cash.

Romney increased his family’s fortune by moving $100 million worth of assets into this trust. The trust’s value is not accounted for in the $250 million that his campaign cites as Romney’s net worth. Also, it is reported that his income tax rate in 2011 was about 14 percent.

The Obama administration anticipates closing this loophole. Romney has vowed as president to cut the gift tax rate and repeal the federal estate tax altogether, referring to this as the “Death Tax.” The Romney campaign stated that this tax “creates a series of perverse incentives that encourages the most complicated and convoluted tax-avoidance schemes at tremendous cost to all involved.”

Clearly, Romney is not digging all these gift and estate taxes. Are you?

If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

So the iPhone 5 is finally out and initial buyers have been waiting in mile-long lines to snatch Apple’s latest generation device. One excited customer explained how much he liked the feeling of handling the phone by stating “it’s so light and has an impressive build quality to it.”

There something else that people should be more excited to invest in. It’s light on your wallet and is very well constructed.

That is your estate plan.

The genius behind apple’s products, Steve Jobs would certainly agree. The master behind the development of the first iPhone understood the importance of quality and solid construction.
Jobs was not only a brilliant innovator and businessman but he was brilliant in employing estate-planning attorneys to guide him in protecting his estimated $7 billion fortune. We all know Jobs was a very private man. That’s why he chose to establish trusts such as living trusts, charitable trusts, and marital trusts to preserve his assets, protect his family, and minimize estate taxes.

The key to correctly using a trust is to fund it with assets. In 2009, both Jobs and his wife transferred three real estate properties into two different trusts. Jobs was also the largest single shareholder of Disney and purportedly received millions of dollars in dividends. It wouldn’t be surprising if he placed those assets into a living trust as well.
Without a solidly constructed estate plan, Jobs would have subjected his loved ones to the burden of paying more than $2 billion in estate tax! That’s certainly not very light on the wallet. He played it smart and invested his money in seasoned and well-qualified attorneys in order to save his family money.

Great news. You can do the same in South Florida.

You can put your new iPhone to great use and google Wild Felice & Partners, PA for all your estate planning needs!

If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?

There may be some serious changes occurring just around the corner that we need to be wary of. The first thing to pop into your mind is probably the 2012 U.S. presidential elections. But what you should also be thinking about is the fact that the current estate and gift tax is set to expire by the end of this year. The current exemption is at a favorable $5.12 million per person, and twice that for a couple. Any amount over this magic number is taxed at a top tax rate of 35%.

However, there may be pending legislation and proposals to drop the exemption to $1 million with a top tax rate of 55%. Because this is an election year, the party platforms covering the transfer tax regime will be relevant to what Congress might do over the next few years. Congressional action is more likely to relate to the amount exempted from transfer tax and the tax rate structure.

It would be wise to act now given the unfavorable situation we may all be faced with. Embrace this opportunity while you still can and contact your South Florida estate planning attorney now. You need to arm yourself with the necessary estate planning tools to protect your legacy and more importantly, protect your family.

Speaking of the 2012 presidential elections, click on this link to hear one of history’s favorite presidents talk about estate planning and asset protection!

If you have family, friends or even a charitable intent, the absence of an estate plan is inexcusable. For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world. Are you protected?