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Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Mar 24, 2010 Assemble a Paper Trail, and Make Sure Your Heirs Can Follow It

QUOTE: No one wants to think about dying. But refusing to look at the documents that will determine where your money goes when you pass away will not make you live longer. It will just make sorting through everything more difficult for your heirs.

 New York Times
Oct 26, 2009 Who owns an artist's legacy?: Digital media open the door to mash-ups, tributes, and other reinventions.

QUOTE: advances in digital media threaten to unbridle the ironclad control that gatekeepers use to guard their ownership rights, tailor a narrative, and protect a legacy [of a dead celebrity].

 Christian Science Monitor
Nov 03, 2007 Texas Proceeding With Plan to Auction Nature Preserve

QUOTE: The dispute pits the donors of the land, the Conservation Fund and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, against a pistol-packing commissioner adamant about preserving hunting and firearms rights on the property, even at the cost of denying the land to the National Park Service, although Texas ranks 44th in park land.

 New York Times
Oct 07, 2007 Readers: The Burden of Being an Executor

QUOTE: "Poring over IRS documents to make sure I submitted all the required forms became like a second job. It was a labor of love, but it's still not over yet. While the court closed the probate and discharged us of our duties in January 2007, the IRS will not release us as fiduciaries of the estate until September 2008."

 Wall Street Journal, The (WSJ)
Oct 02, 2007 Court cases focus on famous faces

QUOTE: The feud is playing out in New York and California. It pits the rights of estates to approve any use of the celebrity's image against the First Amendment right to use images and words of famous people for purposes such as research and art.

 USA TODAY
Feb 03, 2007 Financial Planning: Wills and Other Ways

QUOTE: Nowadays your will may affect only a fraction of what you own. Most of your serious property will probably pass outside your will, through joint ownership, living trusts or the beneficiary forms attached to life insurance and retirement accounts. If the forms aren't in sync (and they're often not), the wrong person might inherit or an adult child (maybe you) might get less than the parents intended.

 Newsweek
Sep 18, 2006 Steps for Heirs to Take After a Death

QUOTE: after the funeral, and in the subsequent weeks and months, heirs have much to deal with in wrapping up the deceased's financial doings and settling the estate. Here are suggestions on a few important tasks and options for heirs:

 Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, NY)
Aug 09, 2006 Love and money and fraud: Financial exploitation of the elderly is growing – and family members are often the culprits.

QUOTE: "Financial abuse and exploitation are among the fastest growing forms of elder abuse nationally as measured by different studies and reports," says Bob Blancato, national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition

 Christian Science Monitor
Jul 23, 2006 I.R.S. to Cut Tax Auditors

QUOTE: The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service ...a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer...called the cuts a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.”

 New York Times
Jul 07, 2006 Legal doctrine stacks up to erase Lay's conviction

QUOTE: Centuries of jurisprudence and a key court ruling in Texas two years ago will make it hard for prosecutors to overcome the bedrock legal principle that will likely erase the fraud conviction of former Enron CEO Ken Lay, who died Wednesday.

 USA TODAY
Jun 13, 2006 Estate-Tax Repeal Would Hurt the 'Small Rich'

QUOTE: When the Senate turned down President Bush's bid to repeal the estate tax permanently last week, it actually did a favor for tens of thousands of moderately well-off households...such households would be worse off under the full repeal scheduled for 2010...than they would be under the 2009 rules, which are more favorable for estates than today's rules.

 Washington Post
Jun 09, 2006 Senate Plan to Repeal Inheritance Tax Fails: Frist Promises Future Votes on Issue

QUOTE: The Senate rejected a plan yesterday to permanently repeal the federal tax on inherited estates..."The 'death tax' is an unfair burden inflicted upon America's small businesses, farmers, and families during a time of grieving and pain," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist...

 Washington Post
May 24, 2006 Retirement plan distribution land mines

QUOTE: The rules for retirement-plan distributions are so complex that even full-time financial professionals often botch things up for their clients...Sometimes the botch occurs during the rollover process...

 Bankrate.com
Mar 01, 2006 Anna Nicole Smith's Supreme Fight: Justices Hear Celebrity's Bid for Cut of Late Husband's Riches

QUOTE: ...her persona yesterday was that of the Widow Marshall, aggrieved spouse of the late Texas oil plutocrat J. Howard Marshall II -- whom she wed in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died the following year. According to Anna Nicole, J. Howard intended to give her tens of millions of dollars from his estate, but his plan was fraudulently thwarted by his son, Pierce, who wanted the old man's money for himself.

 Washington Post
Jan 04, 2006 Buy-sell agreements a family business must

QUOTE: ...a powerful preventative measure that can preserve a family's love and livelihood: the buy-sell agreement. In it, owners specify a course of action when a "trigger event" such as death, divorce or a withdrawing partner places a business' ownership, or even its continued existence, in jeopardy. The agreement is often included as part of the company's overarching operating agreement.

 Bankrate.com
Dec 28, 2005 Determining diminished capacity

QUOTE: A legal finding of "diminished capacity" can have financial ramifications, especially if an estate is contested....How is a finding of diminished capacity made? How can it affect wills, trusts and estate plans? And what can you do to make sure your wishes are carried out even after your mind has "left the building?"

 Bankrate.com
Dec 15, 2005 Greenberg Accused Of 'Self-Dealing': Charity Hurt by Stock Sale, Spitzer Says

QUOTE: Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg ignored his mentor's will four decades ago and sold stocks left to a charitable foundation to two companies Greenberg controlled, in a series of "self-dealing" transactions that drained value from the charity and enriched the Greenberg-controlled companies...

 Washington Post
Nov 12, 2005 Leaving House to Children Requires Careful Planning

QUOTE: ...have your financial and legal advisers review your will and any estate-planning arrangements you have made. You want to leave your current house to your children, so you have to make sure that your will reflects current law and is specific enough to accomplish your desire.

 Washington Post
Sep 28, 2005 Supreme Court to Weigh In on Anna Nicole Smith's Inheritance Case

QUOTE: At issue is the scope of the probate exception to federal jurisdiction. In other words, was a federal appeals court correct when it ruled last year that only state courts have authority over disputed estates?

 Washington Post
Jul 01, 2005 Will kits: Cheap, easy and sometimes useful

QUOTE: If you don't have much money to spend on estate planning, consider a do-it-yourself-will kit, although most lawyers aren't enthusiastic about them and will warn you that an improperly used kit could leave your estate open to confusion or lawsuit. Certainly these kits aren't a good answer for people with lots of money to leave and complex plans for dividing it up, or for people whose families are inclined to fight over what's left, no matter what.

 Bankrate.com
Feb 03, 2005 After Death, a Struggle for Their Digital Remains

QUOTE: ...when he was killed last week in an enemy ambush, one of the first things they did was to contact the company that hosted their son's account. They wanted to know how to access the data and preserve it. But who owns the material is a source of intense debate.

 Washington Post
Dec 07, 2004 Property Wrongs: When Hiring a Caregiver, Guard Against Unexpected Acts of 'Generosity'

QUOTE: The [hired health care--Ed.] relationship may be an entirely wholesome one. But it also can take a wrong turn, with the elder bestowing substantial money or property or making other decisions that extend well beyond the bounds of a professional relationship.

 Washington Post
Feb 01, 2004 Avoid the Medicaid Trust Abyss

QUOTE: The fact that hundreds of people paid up to $2,500 for worthless trusts was only part of the problem. More important for many, perhaps, is that they also lost valuable time to make other plans that could have really protected some of their money for their heirs.

 Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Feb 02, 2003 Splitting heirs and heirlooms

QUOTE: When confronted by the challenge of dispensing personal property in an estate, most people mention fairness as a primary goal. The problem is that "different people have different perceptions of what is fair.

 Advocate, The (Louisiana)
Aug 17, 2002 U.S. Bans a Scheme to Avoid Estate Tax

QUOTE: The Treasury Department banned a technique yesterday that thousands of the wealthiest Americans have used to escape billions of dollars in gift and estate taxes.

 New York Times
Jun 14, 2002 The Inherited Wealth Lobby

QUOTE: But the "taxable event" here is not death. It's the passing on of wealth -- often great wealth -- to the next generation, which may or may not have done anything to earn it.

 Washington Post
Feb 17, 2002 The Ethicist: Snowy Profits

QUOTE: If a local runs his car off the road, we pull him out free, but if a tourist gets stuck in the snow, we charge $20. (We can always tell the difference.) Our rationale: Tourists have more money than locals, and a tow-truck operator charges even more than us.

 New York Times
Jan 03, 2002 Mass. Settles An Issue of Posthumous Conception: State's High Court Says Inheritance Laws Apply

QUOTE: Massachusetts's highest court ruled today that children conceived artificially after a parent dies are entitled to the same inheritance rights as naturally conceived children under state law.

 Washington Post
Nov 08, 2001 The Decline of the Muslim Middle East, and the Roots of Resentment

QUOTE: [European]Inheritance law often allowed a person to designate heirs....Under Islamic law, by contrast, inheritance was prescribed in rigid detail, with all sorts of family members...getting pieces of the estate...fragmentation...

 New York Times
Aug 18, 2001 Yale and the Price of Slavery

QUOTE: It is comforting to think that their [Founding Fathers] generation, so distant in time from us, lived in a condition of moral ignorance, and thus innocence, regarding slavery. But that is not the case.

 New York Times
Jul 06, 2001 Court Case Seeks to Define a Catholic Priest's Family

QUOTE: While the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco...was held by Islamic radicals for nearly 19 months in Lebanon in the 1980's, his relatives back home in Joliet, Ill., felt the anxieties shared by all the hostages' families.

 New York Times
May 20, 2001 Reversing Roles With Mom and Dad

QUOTE: ...do you know the details of your aging parents' assets and liabilities?

 Washington Post
Apr 27, 2001 Consult Tax Adviser Before Parents Lend a Hand

Your parents also should confirm that they have the right to use their IRA funds to assist you with a real estate purchase.

 Washington Post