Implementing & Updating Your Estate Plan
Attorneys in Fairfax, Virginia

Estate planning is an ongoing process. You must not only develop and implement a plan that reflects your current financial and family situation, but you must also constantly review your current plan to ensure it fits in with any changes in your circumstances. crayon.jpg

Of course, with the extensive changes under the 2001 tax act and the probability that more changes will occur in this decade, reviewing your estate plan regularly is now more critical than ever. You’ll especially want to update it after any of the events in Planning tip 9.

Where Do You Go From Here?

Remember, estate planning is about much more than reducing your estate taxes; it’s about ensuring your family is provided for, your business can continue and your charitable goals are achieved. So even if the estate tax is permanently repealed, you will want to have an up-to-date plan in place.

4 More Reasons to Update Your Estate Plan

1. Family changes. Marriages, divorces, births, adoptions, and deaths can all lead to the need for estate plan modifications.

2. Increases in income and net worth. What may have been an appropriate estate plan when your income and net worth were much lower may no longer be effective today.

3. Geographic moves. Different states have different estate planning regulations. Any time you move from one state to another, you should review your estate plan.

4. New health-related conditions. A child may develop special needs due to physical or mental limitations, or a surviving spouse’s ability to earn a living may change because of a disability. Such circumstances often require an estate plan update.

To this end, use the estate planning checklist on the next page to identify areas where you need more information or assistance. Or jot down a few notes about things you want to look at more closely and discuss with a professional advisor. It may be easy for you to put off developing a detailed estate plan — or updating it in light of changes in tax law or your situation. But if you do, much of your estate could go to Uncle Sam — and this could be very hard on your family.

So please call us with any questions you have about the strategies represented here or how they can help you minimize your estate tax liability. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your situation and show how we can help you develop and implement an estate plan that preserves for your heirs what it took you a lifetime to build.

If you have any questions about the topics covered, or if you want more information on how they relate to you, please reach out to our law firm in Fairfax, Virginia, to schedule a consultation with our business and estate planning attorneys. We will be happy to help you with these or any other questions you may have about your estate planning strategies.