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Don't let estate planning myths imperil your financial future.

Article Excerpt
It used to be when discussing estate planning, a top consideration was structuring assets to avoid high estate taxes. But today with the typical estate tax exemption at $2 million per person or $4 million per couple, few people have estates large enough to need estate tax planning.

"Estate tax planning is not the driving force currently in estate planning," said Ronald Morton, a founding member of the Morton Law Firm, PLLC, Clinton, who focuses exclusively on estate planning and elder law. "What we are finding that people are a lot more interested in than tax planning is wealth preservation for their children and grandchildren. I call that legacy planning. That is the trend we are seeing. A lot of the planning we do is to protect assets from creditors and divorce."

With the divorce rate at close to 50%, and second and even third marriages common, it is important to do careful planning if an individual wants to make sure his or her wealth goes to children and grandchildren. It is common for people to have "his, hers and ours" children. When divorced people or widows and widowers remarry, their...

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