Property Tax Reassessment on Transfers

A very important issue to consider in your estate plan is the possible increase in property taxes upon transfer of your home to your beneficiaries.  If you’ve owned your home for a long time in CA, your property taxes are probably significantly lower than they would be if the property value were reassessed as of [...]

I’ve Been Named as Trustee in a Living Trust, Now What?

As trustee, you will have fiduciary duties to carry out the terms of the trust.  A fiduciary is a person who is responsible for taking care of something that belongs to someone else.  Under the law, fiduciaries owe legally-enforceable duties to the people on whose behalf they handle property.  In this case, you will owe [...]

Advantages of Having a Living Trust

This article gives an overview of how a living trust works and the major advantages of forming a revocable living trust to hold and manage your property.

California Estate Planning After Divorce

Estate planning after divorce is an often overlooked priority. If you have a will, trust, power of attorney, health care directive in place, now is a good time to update them.  Obviously, these documents probably named your ex-spouse as a beneficiary of your estate as well as agent to act on your behalf.  Generally, dissolution or annulment [...]

Would You Invest $2500, $5000 or $10,000 for a return of $657,250?

A solid estate plan can be a valuable investment in preserving your assets from probate fees and estate taxes. This example includes the use of a life insurance trust to keep the pay out on death from creating a taxable estate.

Employee Files- Another Reason to Put Everything in Writing…

My friend (we’ll call her Nancy) called me the other day because she recently fired an employee (we’ll call her April) for excessive absences and the employee was filing for unemployment benefits from the State. Unemployment benefits aren’t actually paid out by an employer.  The benefits are paid out by the State from unemployment insurance [...]

The Importance of Estate Planning Post Divorce

Today, I have a guest blogger  who reminds us of another very important loose end to tie up after your divorce…
GUEST BLOGGER: Gabriel Cheong, Esq.
So now that you’ve survived the entire process of divorce and you’re ready to begin the next chapter of your life – where do you begin?  Let me suggest one place [...]

Legalzoom vs. Attorney Services

I have encountered this question often, “what’s the difference between hiring an attorney and using legalzoom.com to prepare your documents?”  The short answer is individualized advice.  What is it worth to have individualized advice when you are setting up your new business or preparing your will?  The question reminds me of that tax commercial where [...]

Trying To Avoid Paying Employment Taxes By Hiring Independent Contractors? Be Careful!

Usually, the most expensive part of running your own business is hiring employees.  This is because, outside of a salary, an employer must withhold and pay Social Security Taxes, Medicare Taxes, and pay unemployment taxes on those wages.  This is not required if you hire an “independent contractor”.  However, just because you categorize someone as [...]

Have You Thought About Your Web Advertising Agreement?

If you are planning to generate revenue by selling ad space on your website, a Web advertising agreement can define the key rights of each party. A well written agreement would include important safeguards for you as the website operator. Examples of this would include such things as prior approval over the advertisements, placement, size [...]

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