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Building Your Legacy
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Protections for
Families with
Minor Children
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Planning for Incapacity
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Estate Planning
with Retirement Benefits
Estate Planning
A comprehensive estate plan is one of the best gifts you can give to your family and loved ones. Christine Waun advises and counsels individuals and business owners in their estate planning and retirement planning needs, taking time to understand your goals and to develop a customized plan to accomplish those goals. Christine provides personalized and caring service to help your family prepare for all stages of life.
We provide assistance to individuals in the following areas:
A revocable living trust is a document that contains instructions to someone you appoint as trustee. A trustee manages and distributes assets for you (and your family) in the event of your incapacity, and to your beneficiaries upon death. These trusts do not avoid estate tax, but they do avoid probate.
A Will is a legal document containing instructions to a legal representative, called a personal representative. The document takes effect at death and therefore no lifetime planning can be done with a Will. A Will does not avoid probate.
A general durable power of attorney is a written authorization that allows someone else to make financial and legal decisions for you.
A Health Care Power of Attorney is a written authorization that allows someone else to make health care decisions for you if you are unable to make those decisions yourself.
Leaving an inherited IRA to a trust will better protect the IRA from creditors and poor spending habits. Using a trust provides greater assurance that long-term tax deferral will be realized.
High net worth estates have a variety of tools and techniques available to preserve and protect assets.
Irrevocable trusts can take on many forms and be used to accomplish a variety of estate planning goals including estate tax reduction, asset protection, and charitable planning.
With proper planning, wealth transfer taxes (estate, gift and GST taxes) can be significantly reduced and often times eliminated.
Business succession planning in a family-owned business context is the process of transferring a family business to the next generation.
Asset protection involves the utilization of estate planning and business strategies to place assets out of the reach of future potential creditors.
Trust and probate administration is the process of settling a decedent’s affairs, which includes identifying, valuing, and distributing assets in accordance with decedent’s will or trust.
There are a number of charitable giving strategies available, each with its own benefits and considerations.
Estate Planning for Retirement Benefits
IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s and other qualified plans are a wonderful way to save for retirement. These plans can also become impressive legacies for heirs and beneficiaries. Christine Waun advises and counsels individuals on planning techniques to “stretch out” the qualified asset as well as provide protection from divorcing spouses, bankruptcy and creditors, and protection for minor or elderly beneficiaries.