The Estate Planning Law Group

Timothy Ferris Would Approve

This is going to be short because I am taking a short break from a shopping extravaganza.

A few months ago a colleague sent me a copy of Timothy Ferris' book, The Four Hour Workweek, which provides readers with a program for whittling down working hours to--you guessed it--four hours a week!

There is a lot to this book (as well as a lot of attitude), but one of the main tips is that you should always give yourself short deadlines to get anything done. Don't do anything ahead of time! People who do things ahead of time tend to spend much more time than necessary to get things done.

On the other hand, if you do everything at the last minute, your adrenaline will kick in, and all your energy will be brought to bear on the task, and you will get it done much more quickly.

I sincerely hope Timothy Ferris is correct, because I have managed to put off all preparations for Christmas until only 72 hours before the event, and the adrenaline has certainly kicked in. I am feeling a little panicked, but one thing is for certain--I am not going to spend weeks of time getting ready.

Timothy Ferris would approve but wish me luck too. I need it!

Regardless, I hope all of my readers enjoy some time with their families and are not having to run around at the last minute.

See you again in 2008!

~ Kirsten Izatt

Look Me In The Eye

I just read a review of a new book that was recently published. It is called "Look Me in the Eye--My Life with Asperger's." I haven't read the book yet, but I plan to get it to find out more about John Elder Robison, the author.

I don't have any family members with Asperger's, but I am always interested in the subject because I work with so many parents who are trying to plan for their children who have received this diagnosis. What I have found is that planning can be difficult for families who have a young children with an Asperger's diagnosis.

Why? Because in many cases it is difficult to know how a young child with Asperger's will grow and develop into adulthood. If we assume that the child will be unable to support him/herself in adulthood, then we will need to incorporate special needs planning provisions. On the other hand, if the child is high functioning and is able to work and develop strong relationships with others (even get married), the planning should be completely different.

I can't imagine that somebody like Robison, who founded a lucrative vintage car repair business and is a married father needs a special needs trust! Then again, when he was a child, maybe his parents would have decided that he did!

If the parents grow old and enjoy watching their child grow up as well, the parents can always modify their plan as needed. But, if they die young, they don't have that chance.

Regardless, it's an issue that needs to be addressed and why we want to incorporate as much flexibility as possible into the planning parents do for their children with these diagnoses.

~ Kirsten Izatt

P.S. Here is the photo of the book cover, and I just discovered Robison's blogspot, just click here to read more about him.

What I Like About "The Summons"

I just finished reading John Grisham's legal thriller The Summons. Ok, I know. I am only five years behind the times (it was published in 2002), but at least I got to it eventually.

This book was a great read for me because it involved estate planning. Legal thrillers usually don't involve estate planning, but this one did.

Here is what happens: old Mississippi Judge summons his son (a law professor) to the family homestead to discuss his estate. The son arrives and finds his recently deceased father lying on the sofa. All sorts of chaos ensues. The son discovers a will signed the day before as well as a bucketload of cash.

What to do?

The son decides NOT to include the loads of cash in his dad's estate. Why? "At least half would get burned in taxes" and it would have to be "explained."

This is where I went crazy reading the story. I supose that the son has to come up with a reason for hiding the cash, which results in a nail-biting pursuit of the son by mysterious people, but Grisham's statement is totally false. Even with the cash, most (if not all) of it would be exempt because of the federal estate tax exemption ($ 2 mllion in 2007).

Probably NO tax would be due. Even if it was, would the son, a tentured law professor at Virginia, really want to risk it all by deliberately trying to defraud the IRS.

Regardless, the story was great even though the premise was totaly wrong. If the son had included the cash in his dad's probate estate it would have legitimately been distributed out to his two sons.

Oh well, I suppose there wouldn't be a story if that happened.

This book represents just one more example of how people can so easily become misled when it comes to estate planning. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. Should Grisham have only told a factually accurate story? Heck no. He writes fiction, and the story is a great read.

Just don't rely on books like this to get an understanding of how estate planning really works.

~ Kirsten L. Izatt