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CHAPTER 18 n KEEP YOUR PLAN CURRENT
(Chapter 1) and to leave your assets to the people (Chapter 2) or charities (Chapter 16) that you wish to beneit. You may not need life insurance, but if your employer or union provides a policy, make sure you have properly completed the beneiciary designation form (Chapter 8). Beneiciary des- ignation forms for your retirement accounts should also be illed out and coordinated with the rest of your estate plan (Chapter 7).
You have a spouse or partner. In addition to the documents that single people need, you should consider the best way to take advantage of the $5.43 million estate tax exclusion (Chapter 3). Most likely, your primary goal in planning is to leave your spouse or partner well pro- vided for inancially (Chapter 4).
Married couples have more built-in protections than unmarried ones. This often lulls them into postponing planning until they have kids. That’s a mistake, as the seven-year legal battle between Terri Schiavo’s husband and her parents illustrates. Schiavo slipped into a coma at age 27. A court named her husband her guardian, but since she hadn’t signed a living will, her parents were able to delay for years his decision to remove her feeding tube. She died in 2005, after the tube was removed.
Less dramatically, your state’s law governing what happens to your assets if you die without a will may differ from what you would want done. In most states parents share the estate with a surviving, childless spouse; in some, siblings and more distant relatives have a claim on separately titled assets, too.
You have young children. People’s inancial situations at this stage vary hugely. Those who had business successes at a young age or had children after their careers were well established might be in a position to take advantage of some sophisticated planning techniques described in Chapter 15 to create a inancial cushion for their children in the years ahead. Others have so many current expenses that they can’t think much beyond that. Even if you fall in the second category, this is the ideal
time to start saving for the enormous education expenses that await you (Chapter 9). And if you never thought you needed life insurance, you might want to reconsider (Chapter 8).
You have children who are young adults. Life has gotten simpler in some ways and more complicated in others. (Are you surprised to ind you
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