Risk #3:
The Government Will Claim Your Fortune after You Pass Away
After you have spent years of your life making a fortune in real estate, it is troubling to think that very little of it will go to your spouse or heirs after you die. But we do hear stories just like that, and sad to say, they usually affect small-time real estate investors, not the big players, who usually have knowledgeable lawyers who have helped them plan their estates wisely. Most often, it is the small investor who owns three or four houses who leaves a poorly planned estate to a family that ends up selling off some of the property in order to pay estate taxes.
Yet, there are alternatives even for small investors. Talk with an attorney who is an expert in estate planning to learn about strategies like these:
• Give properties to your children and heirs now so they will not have to pay estate tax on them.
• Create a trust that minimizes estate taxes when the properties you own are passed to your heirs.
• Incorporate so your holdings become a separate entity and issue shares in the corporation to your heirs now, in effect, transferring ownership to them while you are still alive.
A wise attorney will have many more strategies to offer. Wise estate planning can help assure that your wealth will go to the people you love, not to Uncle Sam.
PREVIOUS PAGE - Loophole in Insurance
NEXT PAGE - Risk Dishonest Employees
