For the first time ever, I volunteered as a poll worker in Pennsylvania’s primary election held a few weeks ago. I’ve always wanted to do it, I just never took the time to follow-up. As a kid, I can remember going to the polls with my parents and my mother letting me punch the ballot …

Ch-ch-ch-Changes (turn and face the strange) David Bowie’s lyrics are really speaking to me today as every day seems strange and full of changes. It’s probably become familiar now, instructions to do one thing followed by new instructions to do the opposite thing one week later. We are following the changes as they may affect …

New Law for 2020 Children Under 21 Inherit Tax Free from Parents Good news for parents of children under 21, your children will inherit from you with no inheritance tax. The Pennsylvania state government passed the law last year changing the tax rate from 4.5% to 0 for children under 21 inheriting from a parent. …

The SECURE Law hasn’t gotten too much coverage but it took effect January 1, 2020. The main thrust of the law is to increase American retirement savings, but there’s one provision that seems intended to increase income tax revenues and it could have a big impact on your estate planning. Read more about the new …

Many seniors do not plan for the likelihood of long-term care. Yet, nearly two-thirds of seniors will need care in their lifetime. It is important to collect as much information as necessary to assist in decisions regarding long-term care that will not only affect the elderly, but their families, as well.

Many of us are already managing a parent or other family member’s finances as their power of attorney agent, or we know we are up for the job when they are no longer able to do it themselves. In my role, I see a lot of Power of Attorney Agents do the best they can, …

Caregiver Agreement: The Reason I’ve had many clients come to me who have been taking care of mom or dad, sometimes for years, and been paying themselves from mom or dad’s money. There’s nothing wrong with this, often mom or dad is the one who insisted on paying caregiver child. The problem comes if the …

Most of us have been forced to make a decision we didn’t like. I think for many of us, that decision often has something to do with limited funds. Health care decisions, unfortunately, can involve those same decisions—particularly when it comes to long term care. As I say in my workshops, planning for potential long-term …

It seems that people are often only starting a conversation with me when something has already happened, someone fell, someone hurt themselves, someone is already needing long term care. But then I realized, before you can even have a conversation with a third party, you need to know what you’re even discussing.

Many often wonder if self-made wills are valid. In short, yes they can be valid. However, in creating a will without the guidance of an attorney, costly mistakes and errors can be made. One of the most common mistakes is the incomplete or unclear distribution of assets. For example, if you state that Person A gets everything, but later in the document also indicate that Person B gets a specific item. This simple mistake could end up causing a dispute.