Over the course of your life, you've built substantial wealth. When you die, that wealth can pass to your heirs or to Uncle Sam. Without comprehensive estate and wealth preservation planning, the federal government alone can levy estate taxes charge that could consume as much as 55 percent of your assets. Often state and local governments also assess estate or inheritance taxes. Your heirs may have to sell assets you wanted them to keep to pay these taxes.

Careful advance planning may preserve your assets for your heirs, and minimize the taxes the government can collect. Such a plan cannot only preserve your assets after your death, it can also increase the amount of wealth your children and grandchildren will receive. Your estate plan may also preserve your personal residence so you can keep the family homestead in the family. Financial strategies combined with the proper financial tools, make it possible to keep your assets outside the transfer tax system for the next century.

Some of the financial strategies and tools we may recommend you use in developing your personal estate plan are:

	Wills
	Living Trusts
	Generation Skipping Trusts
	Charitable Remainder Trusts
	Qualified Personal Residence Trusts
	Family Partnerships

The primary funding vehicle in several of these programs is life insurance. All of the above strategies involve an attorney. We will work with your attorney or we can refer you to several competent estate and tax attorneys.