Without getting into too much detail, if your estate is of sufficient size - $5 million plus - to be concerned about estate planning there are unique planning ideas that can help you and your family minimize estate taxes, increase retirement cash flow to you and your spouse and to help a worthy charity (or charities) that you care about, as well as life insurance.

Here's just one very simple idea out of many: One sets up what is called a charitable remainder trust. This trust gives a future donation of property or other assets (usually appreciated assets). The property is given today but the charity does not have access to that until both you and your spouse die.

Say it is an apartment building purchased for $500,000 15 years ago and now worth $3,000,000. The charity receives the gift, sells the property and guarantees you and your spouse a lifetime income. You receive the income plus a current substantial tax deduction.

What's the result? You and your spouse receive lifetime income, a current large tax deduction and the property is no longer in your estate or subject to estate taxes. So what about the children or grandchildren? One can take some of the cash flow from the charity and by using an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) obtain life insurance that replaces the value of the asset to the children and passes estate and income tax free!

This is a very simplified description of many varieities of this and other techniques where you, your family and charity can benefit if you plan a gift.

Ask a qualified associate, in concert with legal advice, to help crunch the numbers to show if such designs can be of benefit to you. You can contact us for more information on charitable planning. Mark the contact - "Questions about charitable planning" so we get it to the right associate.