Plan your estate

Setting your goal

Laying the groundwork

Children

Wills

Probate and how to avoid it

Understanding estate and gift taxes

Reducing or eliminating estate taxes

Imposing controls over property

Taking care of personal issues

Family business

Going further

Sample estate plans.

Your estate planning goals

Personal concerns and estate planning

Special property ownership rules for married people

Inventorying your property

Your beneficiaries

Children

Wills

Probate and why you want to avoid it

Living trusts

Joint tenancy and tenancy by the entirety

Pay-on-death designations, registrations, and deeds

Life insurance

Retirement benefits

State law exemptions from normal probate

Estate taxes

Gifts and gift taxes

An overview of ongoing trusts

AB disclaimer trusts

Other estate tax-saving marital trusts

Charitable trusts

Other estate tax-saving trusts

Disclaimers: after-death estate tax planning

Combining estate tax-saving trusts

Property control trusts for second or subsequent marriages

Trusts and other devices for imposing controls over property

Incapacity: making medical and financial decisions - Body and organ donation, funerals, and burials

Family business estate planning

Using lawyers

After you complete your estate plan

After a death occurs

Some estate plans.