When planning your estate rarely will you experience difficulty naming your initial beneficiary or beneficiaries for your will, IRA’s or life insurance.
Before the original SECURE Act, IRA owners who died were able to leave their accounts to their children, grandkids, or other non-spouse individual beneficiaries, and heirs could stretch required minimum distributions (RMDs) over their own lifetimes, thus allowing the funds in the accounts to grow tax-free for decades.
These six steps can help future caregivers know where aging parents stand financially, as well as help them to avoid surprises that could imperil their own retirement.
As life is unpredictable, it is better to start planning sooner rather than later. In fact, upon attaining the legal age of majority in your state of residence (typically at age 18), you should begin considering some form of an estate plan.
However, settling the second spouse's affairs was more complex, even with advance planning. Everything from wills to banking to tax returns became more complicated.
If you have life insurance, you know you were required to pick a single or multiple beneficiaries when you purchased your policy. When you die, the beneficiaries receive the payout from the policy.
