The heirs of Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who died Sunday, could face billions of dollars in inheritance taxes. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have to cede control over the group by selling shares.
After art dealer Andre Zarre died in July, at age 78, his relatives got a surprise call from someone named Jose Yeje, co-owner of a deli in Queens. Yeje told them that, just nine days before his death, Zarre changed his will to name Yeje as the executor and sole beneficiary of his estate, which is worth millions.
In addition to writing wills, Minnesotans are now setting up trusts to care for pets, ranging from dogs and horses to parrots and raccoons.
Cornelius Vanderbilt was among the richest Americans ever to have lived. Born in 1794, he built his fortune on railroads and shipping. To put his wealth into context, in today’s dollars when adding inflation, his fortune would be worth $215.7 billion.
Estate planning is the process of transferring the management of your assets, if and when you are unable to manage them yourself due to disability or death. Whether you have $100 or $100 million you should have an estate plan.
Most people can’t wait for retirement, and even more would likely opt for some form of early retirement, if they had the opportunity. Whenever you ultimately decide to cut down your time at work or leave the workforce altogether, you need to ensure that you have a full slate of estate planning documents in place.
When Pablo Picasso died in 1973 at the age of 91, he left behind about 45,000 works of art – so many that it would take the entire Empire State Building to display them all at the same time – and yet he didn’t leave a will.
LOIs may also include whatever you think may help the people you leave behind or who would take over if you are not capable.
Unfortunately, due to hidden resentments, siblings still tend to end up in court suing each other and losing great chunks of their inheritance in the process all too frequently.
An Uncle (or grandparent, sibling, or parent) died, leaving his IRA to one named niece (or grandchild, sibling, or child). However, everyone, including the named beneficiary, agrees–the decedent should have named all members of the class as equal beneficiaries. After all, he left all his other assets equally to all the class members. He surely meant for all of them to share the IRA equally too, right? Can’t we just ignore this mistake and pay out the IRA to everybody?