Cook County Estate Tax Attorneys | Estate Tax Lawyers, Cook County IL

In this episode, our Cook County estate tax attorneys discuss the 8 goals of a good estate plan, including appointment of fiduciaries, distribution of assets, avoidance of probate, avoidance of guardianship proceedings upon mental incompetency, end of life instruction, minimizing estate tax, special needs planning, protecting assets from creditors, and medicaid planning.

In this article, our Cook County estate tax attorneys explain some of the strategies we use to minimize estate tax. In addition to the taxes that you pay during your lifetime, both the federal and the Illinois state governments require your estate to pay a tax before passing to your heirs.Luckily, we have several relatively inexpensive tools that we can use to legally avoid much or all of the estate tax that would otherwise be imposed on your estate.

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In this article, our Cook County estate tax attorneys explain the various taxes that executors, administers and trustees must pay on behalf of a deceased individual's estate. We explain the difference between estate tax, estate income tax, and the decedent's final year of income tax, as well as the different taxing bodies to whom these taxes must be paid. Probate can be avoided by executed a revocable living trust and transferring your real estate and savings accounts into it during your lifetime. A revocable living trust is a legal entity that can own property. It typically provides that the creator of the trust has complete control over the property owned by the trust during his or her lifetime, and describes how the trust assets will be distributed after the creator’s death. So, we can avoid probate by taking the following steps:

1. Create and execute a revocable living trust;
2. Deed any real estate owned by the client into the trust;
3. Transfer any savings accounts that are not qualified retirement accounts into the trust; and
4. Ensure that proper beneficiaries and successor beneficiaries are named on qualified retirement accounts and life insurance policies.

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